Steven Butow, director of the space portfolio at the Defense Innovation Unit, said the U.S. Space Force is opening up new opportunities to commercial companies to offer their products and services to the defense market, SpaceNews reported Monday.
According to Butow, satellite imagery is one area where the Space Force sees an opportunity to procure services directly from providers.
“We’ve been fighting really hard for the Space Force to be an executive agent to be able to go out and procure commercial remote sensing information that would be used by all the military services,” he said.
Butow explained that the Department of Defense traditionally works with the National Reconnaissance Office and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency to fulfill the military’s satellite imagery needs.
However, this process takes too long and could disproportionately decrease the value of data. To address this, Space Force is looking for faster options to procure satellite imagery.
“The earlier you know something, the more time you have to make decisions, especially if you want to have diplomatic options or have other ways of mitigating a disaster,” Butow said.
Join the Potomac Officers Club’s 2024 Space Summit on March 5 to learn how new technologies, commercial investments and adversarial threats are shaping the future of space. Butow will be featured in a panel discussion. Click here to register!
