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St. Louis — The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the U.S. Space Force have formalized a new collaboration to accelerate commercial space-based intelligence to frontline users, signing a memorandum of agreement on May 21 that sets out how the two organizations will work together on the Space Force’s Tactical Surveillance, Reconnaissance and Tracking program.
The agreement establishes how NGA and the Space Force will divide responsibilities for sourcing and supplying commercial imagery-derived remote sensing data and related products. The goal is to improve support to combatant commands while cutting overlap and duplication across programs.
“What [the agreement] really reflects is the quality of collaboration and every echelon that was necessary to work through these procedures,” Saltzman said. “I’m excited about this because of what it represents, and that’s really industrial strength collaboration.”
Whitworth echoed Saltzman’s remarks, calling the agreement a “new standard for collaboration.”
TacSRT is a Space Force effort focused on quickly delivering unclassified commercial sensing and analytics to operational commanders through Space Force service components. The program is designed to respond rapidly to specific requests from combatant commands and provide planning tools that sharpen situational understanding.
By leaning on unclassified commercial data, the partners aim to speed delivery of geospatial insights and make it easier to share information with allies, interagency partners and coalition forces. The framework also clarifies who procures which types of commercial imagery and analytics, and who transforms those feeds into products that can be used in operations.
NGA, a Defense Department combat support agency, is the government’s lead for geospatial intelligence, integrating imagery, maps and analysis for military and national security customers. The Space Force, led by the chief of space operations, is expanding its use of commercial space services to augment government systems and provide faster, more flexible support to forces in the field.
Both organizations cast the pact as a practical step toward streamlining how commercial space data moves from vendors to warfighters, with common processes intended to reduce redundancy, improve interoperability and get actionable products into commanders’ hands more quickly.
