National Reconnaissance Office Release #05-21

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Nov. 3, 2021

Office of Public Affairs

Contact: (703) 808-1198

NRO announces acquisition for next generation of commercial imagery

CHANTILLY, Va. – The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) today announced the release of 

the Electro-Optical Commercial Layer (EOCL) Request for Proposal (RFP). This latest acquisition 

opportunity marks an important step forward in NRO’s delivery of the next generation of 

commercial imagery, and specifically addresses the mission needs of the intelligence, defense, 

and federal civil agency user communities. 

“The EOCL RFP is the culmination of months of collaboration with our stakeholders and is 

critical to meeting the needs of the national and military intelligence community,” said Dr. Troy 

Meink, principal deputy director of the NRO. “This solicitation, coupled with NRO’s recent 

Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) Framework for Strategic Commercial Enhancements, 

demonstrates our shared commitment to the next wave of commercial innovation at the best 

value to the taxpayer.”

The EOCL RFP is open to U.S.-owned, operated, and controlled organizations. This decision is 

based on the National Space Policy of the U.S. and the desire to foster greater stability and 

investment in the U.S. market. NRO and its IC partners are committed to stable and increasing 

funding for commercial services into the future to support this acquisition.

The NRO’s BAA for Strategic Commercial Enhancements released last month is structured to be 

inclusive of a broader market space. It is open to U.S.-owned and/or controlled companies as 

well as foreign-owned and/or controlled U.S. companies that meet the security requirements 

outlined in the BAA.
“Global competition in commercial remote sensing is fierce, and while a growing number of 

U.S. companies are at the forefront, they are not alone,” emphasized Pete Muend, NRO’s 

Commercial Systems Program (CSPO) director. “We want to ensure that our U.S. industrial base 

is and remains competitive so they can continue to provide operational support to the IC and 

DoD in support of national security.”

The NRO collaborated with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) in its role as 

GEOINT Functional Manager to gather and finalize user requirements from across the National 

System for Geospatial Intelligence community. This process determines the scope of the 

eventual EOCL contracts and ensures that community needs are clearly understood and 

prioritized. 

“This next generation of commercial imagery contracts will be unique in many ways,” explained 

Muend. “These commercial contracts are designed to afford broad levels of shareability and 

user-friendly license conditions that enable greater access to and utilization of commercial 

imagery by a diverse user community.” 

For this reason, the NRO developed a common family of licenses that will facilitate a 

standardized, automated approach to imagery dissemination and sharing. EOCL contracts will 

also include incentives for innovation and capability development. 

The EOCL RFP is available on the NRO’s Acquisition Research Center website. 

For more information about the EOCL RFP and the BAA for Strategic Commercial 

Enhancements, click here. 

###

For sixty years, the NRO has developed, acquired, launched and operated the satellites that are

the foundation for America’s advantage and strength in space. Using a diversified architecture

of spacecraft, NRO collects and delivers the best space-based intelligence, surveillance, and 

reconnaissance content on the planet. Its customers include every member of the Intelligence 

Community, Department of Defense, two dozen domestic agencies, warfighters, decisionmakers, and policymakers. Learn more at nro.gov.