According to National Space Council Executive Secretary Chirag Parikh, officials are in the process of analyzing the issues surrounding the tactical intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance requirements of combatant commands, how such requirements are not being met and how to best address such shortcomings, Breaking Defense reported Wednesday.
Department of the Air Force and U.S. Space Force officials said in 2023 that the need of field commanders for the speedy delivery of tactical ISR remained unfulfilled and so argued for the establishment of a budget that would allow USSF to procure commercial satellite products, including TacISR.
The Space Force’s push for commercial ISR procurement powers has been seen by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency as a potential encroachment into its role. The ongoing needs analysis, which Parikh described as an “analytically driven process,” is part of broader efforts to resolve the Space Force-NGA dispute.
Commenting on the assessment, Parikh said during the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation’s annual GEOINT conference on May 8 that there is a need to “better quantify the anecdotes and the challenges” being put forward by combatant commands and the Space Force while noting that the NGA may very well need to make changes to keep up with the modern battlespace.
And while it remains unclear what changes have to be made, Parikh expressed confidence that “something is going to change along the way.”