got geoint?

Welcome to the Monday Morning News Kick Off post from got geoint? We hope everyone had a restful weekend and is ready to kick the work week into high gear. For this week’s MMNKO (we still love that acronym) post, we have a number of GEOINT-related stories, including a Washington Post story on GeoEye, as well as a Post Op-Ed by Thomas Fingar and Mary Margaret Graham. Of course, we also have more news about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and satellite imagery. So, as we always say, fire up that second cup of coffee and read on!

GeoEye Building Satellite, Awaits Decision on Major Contract Award
Dulles-based satellite imaging company GeoEye is busy building its next satellite and readying for a major contract decision from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. The firm already uses the high-resolution GeoEye-1 satellite, as well as IKONOS and aerial imagery from its subsidiary MJ Harden, to take detailed images of the earth, capturing key spots like Haiti in the aftermath of the January earthquake and the recent volcanic eruption in Iceland that disrupted air travel. GeoEye is expecting to launch a new satellite in late 2012. Read the full Washington Post story here.

NOAA and NASA Satellites Tasked with Monitoring Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill
From their perch hundreds of miles in the air satellites provide an invaluable view of our Earth, most often associated with weather and disasters. With the explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon well and the subsequent oil spill, these space faring tools are now tasked with monitoring the oil as it hits the U.S. Gulf Coast. Satellites from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA began tracking the oil slick soon after the April 20th rig explosion. Since then, they have watched from above as the slick approaches Louisiana and the Mississippi Delta threatening an ecological disaster greater than the Exxon Valdez. Read the full Washington Examiner story here.

Five Years Later, a Stronger Intelligence Community
Commentators noting the fifth anniversary, this month, of the launch of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence have largely paid more attention to shortcomings than to what has been achieved and why the achievements are important. This is unfortunate for many reasons, not least because it is disheartening to the analysts, collectors and others who know that progress is real — and fragile. The intelligence community operates very differently today than it used to. It still has far to go but is moving in the right direction faster than would have been possible without DNI authorities and leadership. Those who argue otherwise are ill-informed or disingenuous. Read the full Washington Post Op-Ed by Thomas Fingar, the first deputy director of national intelligence for analysis (2005-2008), is a distinguished fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and Mary Margaret Graham, the first deputy director of national intelligence for collection (2005-2008), who chairs the Defense Intelligence Agency’s advisory board and is one of the National Geospatial Agency’s independent advisers here.

Analysis: Smart Change is Slow for U.S. Intelligence Agencies
There they stood, an unprecedented public gathering of all heads of the American intelligence community. The 16 leaders of the agencies and departments that make up the intelligence community stood at attention behind Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair last week to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the position’s formation. Change doesn’t come easily, especially when dealing with the entrenched bureaucracy of the federal government. So it’s not surprising that five years after Congress created the job to run the sprawling 16-member community, it is very much a work in progress. Read the full CNN story here.

Downed U-2 Pilot’s Son on Own Mission in Russia
Fifty years ago Saturday, U.S. pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down while flying a U-2 spy plane over the Soviet Union, a dramatic episode of the Cold War that pushed the rival superpowers closer to confrontation. Now his son has come to Moscow on a mission of his own: By telling his late father’s story, he hopes to help preserve Cold War history and prevent future generations of Russians and Americans from ever again facing the threat of nuclear war. On May 1, 1960, Powers was in the cockpit of the world’s highest-flying plane, concentrated on keeping his course steady to film Soviet military bases far below, when he saw an orange flash all around him. His plane had been hit by a Soviet surface-to-air missile. He parachuted to safety but was quickly captured. Read the full AP story here.

Tags: GeoEye, GeoEye and Washington Post, GeoEye-1, GEOINT, geospatial intelligence, GIS, got geoint?, Mary Margaret Graham, NASA imagery, NOAA and NASA oil spill imagery, ODNI, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, satellite imagery of oil spill, Thomas Fingar, United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation, USGIF