How the Pentagon uses AI with spy satellite data

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Last week I had the opportunity to take part in venture firm Space Capital’s NYC summit, which gathered investors and portfolio companies and included a number of panels on key industry topics such as Starship and China.

The conversation I moderated was on “Big (Geospatial) Data & AI,” with the goal of exploring how the two rapidly evolving worlds of satellite data collection and artificial intelligence interact. I was joined by Nathan Kundtz, formerly of satellite antenna company Kymeta and now leading a synthetic data startup called Rendered, and Rachael Martin, the Maven Office Director at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. It’s rare to hear from someone like Martin, who’s deep within the intelligence community and has a front row seat on the intersection of classified information and cutting-edge technology.

Martin leads the Department of Defense’s flagship AI program, Project Maven, from within the NGA, which is effectively a sibling agency to the National Reconnaissance Office. Simply put, Project Maven at NGA is working on how AI can use satellite imagery and data to detect objects and activities around the world.

Or, in Martin’s words, the NRO will “launch them and we tell them where to go.”

The introduction of AI into the satellite data realm is one of necessity, Martin emphasized, because “we have billions of geospatially-referenced data points,” so “how do we understand them in a way that can provide value?” 

“We’re in a position where you have satellites everywhere but there’s so many of them that you still don’t know what’s going on everywhere, and you couldn’t possibly look at all that data and understand it in a helpful way,” Martin said.

“As the volume of that data grows, it is beyond the capacity of the human mind to be able to derive any kind of useful understanding from that kind of data,” Martin said. What’s more, “There are many different kinds of geospatial data and you’re not necessarily going to use the same kinds of AI techniques to derive value” from each of them, she added.

One of the major changes Martin has seen in recent years is that more and more companies in the geospatial realm “want to be part of helping us evolve solutions to some of our challenges.”

“From a national security perspective, our adversaries are not interested in putting objects of interest where we can find them. And so in many cases, we have to use [artificial intelligence] to help us imagine what they might look like in other scenarios that would be of interest to us,” Martin said.

And more change is coming: The next step in the evolution of geospatial data and AI, from her view, is applying generative AI “to basically arm non-experts with the ability to expertly use geospatial data.”

“What we can do with some of the generative AI tools that are coming out is to create the ability for a non-expert to query complex geospatial data and get a response back far, far more quickly than if they would have just outsourced that to a data scientist,” Martin said.

• Starliner crew flight test delayed to June 1 as Boeing and NASA continue to assess the spacecraft’s propulsion system after discovering a helium leak. – Boeing
• SpaceX launches NROL-146 mission carrying spy agency’s first ‘proliferated system’ satellites: The mission carried an undisclosed number of satellites, but the NRO disclosed that it expects to conduct about “half a dozen launches” as part of the constellation this year. – NRO
• Amazon deorbiting Project Kuiper prototypes and ending the mission that had “a 100% success rate” as it prepares to begin launches of its commercial internet satellites. – Amazon
• Blue Origin resumes crewed New Shepard flights with the company’s NS-25 featuring six passengers, including Ed Dwight, who was selected in 1961 to be the first black astronaut candidate but was never selected for a NASA mission. On its return, one of the three parachutes for the New Shepard capsule didn’t fully inflate, but the company noted the capsule is designed to land safely with only two parachutes. – SpaceNews
• Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser spaceplane arrives in Florida in preparation for a launch attempt later this year that would mark its first spaceflight, aiming to deliver and return cargo from the International Space Station. – NASA
• Lithuania becomes 40th country to sign the Artemis Accords, as the U.S.-led international partnership continues to grow steadily. – NASA

• BAE selected for $450 million NOAA contract, to develop ocean data flight instruments as part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Geostationary Extended Observations (GeoXO) satellite program. – NOAA
• Airbus awarded $369 million ESA contract for Vigil solar spacecraft: The spacecraft is scheduled for launch in 2031 and intends to provide an “early warning” service for severe space weather such as solar storms. – ESA
• Starfish Space awarded $37.5 million Space Force contract to build and operate an Otter satellite for a docking mission in orbit. – Space Force
• ESA awards $27 million cargo delivery study contracts to Thales Alenia Space and The Exploration Company each, as the pair of European companies work on concepts for delivering cargo to and from space stations in low Earth orbit. – SpaceNews
• Intelsat orders further satellite extension missions from Northrop Grumman, using the latter’s “Mission Extension Vehicles” (MEV) to further extend the usefulness of Intelsat satellites already in orbit. – Intelsat

• Viasat reports fourth-quarter results, with revenue of $1.15 billion for the quarter that was just above analyst expectations according to FactSet. But the company expects “roughly flat” revenue growth in the coming fiscal year, with its next two ViaSat-3 satellites expected to “begin to impact” financial results in fiscal year 2026. – Viasat

• Shawn Buckley named Vice President of Space Destinations at Sierra Space, leading the company’s space station development. He was previously a senior director at the company, and before that worked at Lockheed Martin and Bigelow Aerospace. – Sierra
• Charles Beames appointed Executive Chairman of TrustPoint, a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) startup. Beames’ experience includes high-level space roles in the Pentagon. He currently also serves as the chairman of York Space Systems and SpiderOak. – TrustPoint
• Andre Parris hired as Global Head of Business Development at Kuva Space, the Finnish hyperspectral satellite company. Parris’ previous companies include BlackSky, Planet and Bloomberg. – Kuva
• Aaron Frost hired as Advanced Space’s Director of People, joining the spacecraft company after prior roles at Viasat, Meta and Amazon. – Advanced Space

• Jeff Bingham, a space policy leader, dies at 77: Bingham’s career was influential at NASA, from both inside and outside the agency. He especially played a major role in policies supporting and evolving the International Space Station. In a tribute, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson noted that Bingham’s “work and influence live on.” – SpacePolicyOnline
• Anita Gale, CEO of the National Space Society, dies. Gale began her career in the industry as a Rockwell engineer working on the Space Shuttle in the 1970s and helped lead space settlement design competitions around the world for high school students. – National Space Society

• May 23: SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launches Starlink satellites from Florida.
• May 24: NASA press briefing on Boeing’s Starliner crew flight test delays.
• May 25: Rocket Lab’s Electron launches NASA’s PREFIRE Mission 1 from New Zealand.
• May 27: SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launches Starlink satellites from Florida.
• May 27: SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launches ESA’s EarthCARE satellite from California.