Acquisition Strategies for Future Space-Based Optics Follow On Letter Report: Unclassified Summary (2023)
Chapter: Unclassified Summary
Unclassified Summary
In 2018, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened an ad hoc committee to assess current and future investments in space-based optics and identify opportunities to inform future technology developments and transitions.1 This effort produced the 2019 classified consensus study report Acquisition Strategies for Future Space Based Optics. The study originated with congressionally directed language from the House Permanent Select Committee for Intelligence and was sponsored through the National Reconnaissance Office’s (NRO’s) Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT) Directorate.
In December 2020, NRO’s GEOINT Directorate asked the National Academies to reconvene the original study’s committee to review several aspects of the original findings relative to advancements and changes that have occurred since the original report and produce a letter report summarizing their assessment. Specifically, the Committee on Acquisition Strategies for Future Space-Based Optics was asked to review the progress of a program that falls under the original study’s statement of task but was not mature enough at the time of the original study to be reviewed by the committee. At the request of the sponsor, the committee focused on the following areas related to the program under review:
- Mission applicability including new missions;
- Space vehicle concept designs, including infrastructure and supporting systems; and
- Technology risk reduction and potential synergies with other large optics programs.
In May 2021, the committee convened at NRO’s headquarters facility where it received classified briefings and materials related to the program under review. The committee subsequently met on three additional occasions to review the materials; deliberate on findings, conclusions, and recommendations; and draft a short letter report. That letter report and its findings, conclusions, and recommendations were formulated based on the information obtained in briefings and materials and informed by the committee’s efforts and knowledge on the original study. The letter report and its contents are classified and cannot be summarized here.
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1 See Appendix A for the original study statement of task.
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