Commercial radar companies are becoming standing suppliers to the US spy satellite agency. The National Reconnaissance Office has placed Capella Space, ICEYE US and Umbra on new contracts that turn years of pilot studies into steady, operational work for intelligence agencies.
The awards, announced Aug. 5 under its Radar Commercial Augmentation program, carry a one-year performance base running Aug. 1, 2026 through July 31, 2027, plus two optional follow-on years that could extend them to mid-2029. The NRO kept the dollar values out of its announcement, noting the figures fall inside its classified budget.
Each firm came into the program through the Commercial Radar Capabilities Broad Area Announcement signed in December, a vehicle the NRO used to test commercial synthetic aperture radar beside its own classified satellites. The new agreements convert those study arrangements into firm, fixed-price work that carries defined performance thresholds and improvement goals, an NRO spokesperson said.
The agency casts the arrangement as a force multiplier. Pairing commercial radar with government systems widens collection capacity and keeps coverage of the globe constant, day and night and in any weather, for national security and humanitarian missions alike.
The setup also eases information sharing across agencies. ICEYE US radar data carries no classification, so its collections can move freely to defense, intelligence, civil and allied partners under existing agreements, the company said.
ICEYE US chief executive Ann Stevens said the win reflects how commercial remote sensing has become a standard tool the intelligence community leans on for its hardest collection problems, while Umbra chief executive David Langan called the award a milestone in a long-running partnership.
The contracts deepen an NRO strategy, first tested with its electro-optical layer, of folding commercial space innovation into classified collection architecture.
