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Hyperspectral satellite imagery can provide detailed information about the composition ground objects. (European Space Agency)

WASHINGTON — The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) has awarded its first contracts for hyperspectral imagery — which can pinpoint things like buried landmines and surface areas that have been camouflaged — to six satellite firms, the spy satellite agency announced today.

The six firms are BlackSky Technology, HyperSat, Orbital Sidekick, Pixxel, Planet, and Xplore.

“Designed with low barriers to entry to accommodate emerging providers, we anticipate the initial value of each contract to be about $300,000. They can quickly be scaled to much higher values as mission value, customer requirements, and on-orbit provider capabilities are confirmed,” an NRO spokesperson told Breaking Defense. “The contracts will have a 6-month base period of performance, with two 24-month options (4 years total) and additional options to extend further.”

The contracts were awarded through NRO’s Strategic Commercial Enhancement’s Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) Framework, an umbrella tool that covers acquisition of new and emerging sensor technologies. The BAA has been used over the past two years to gather commercially-provided electro-optical, synthetic aperture radar (SAR), and radio frequency remote sensing data.

Hyperspectral cameras break down pixels into hundreds of frequency bands and thus can detect minute differences in colors that cannot be seen by the human eye, or detected by other types of imagery cameras such as infrared. Thus, hyperspectral sensors can “see” what materials a surface is made of and identify individual elements in the surrounding atmosphere. For national security purposes, hyperspectral imagery could for example detect evidence of chemical weapon production and/or use.

While such cameras have been used for three decades on airborne platforms for things like analyzing crop health, until recently it has been too expensive to miniaturize them for use on satellites.

NRO issued a request for proposals last November, and the agency is proud of how fast it was able to turn around actual awards.

“In just over four months from RFP release to award, these contracts demonstrate our continued commitment to agile acquisition,” said Pete Muend, director of the NRO’s commercial systems program office in the agency’s announcement. “Speed remains vital to take advantage of the innovation coming from industry, and to assess emerging technologies such as HSI and the potential to address intelligence challenges.”