Lost in space: struggling spy satellite agency tries to right itself.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: Battlefield Intelligence

SAN ANTONIO, Texas -- The National Reconnaissance Office, the agency responsible for developing and launching the US. fleet of spy satellites, is embarking on an ambitious plan to right itself after years of cost overruns and program cancellations.

But two powerful senators have opposed the office's plans to launch the next generation of classified spacecraft. Personnel issues, namely a shortage of qualified personnel, may also impede progress.

Nevertheless, retired Air Force Gen. Bruce Carlson, appointed last year as the director, vowed to put the NRO back on track. "We are going to turn the corner and we are going to begin to deliver things on time and on cost," he said at the Geo-Int conference.

The NRO cancelled in 2005 an ambitious plan to upgrade the satellites that provide high-resolution photos and other imagery to the defense and intelligence communities, called the future imagery architecture. The electro-optical sensors aboard these spacecraft collect data in the electromagnetic spectrum of wavelengths--visible light, infrared and ultraviolet radiation. The FIA program, which ran into technical difficulties, cost taxpayers billions. How much is not certain since the NRO's budget is classified.

Details of its next-generation electro-optical system are also classified. However, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and ranking member, Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., have proposed an alternative system, one they said will be less expensive. Both also sit on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees defense spending.

This disappoints Carlson, who said Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and President Obama have all signed off on the plan for the next-generation satellites.

"You would think with that kind of horsepower this would be a pretty simple feat," Carlson said. "Not so fast. There are some who believe that there are other solutions to this problem."

The NRO concept will require an upfront investment, but over time it will develop a series of space vehicles that will be much less costly to acquire, be easily modified with open architecture, and modular, he said.

The open architecture will "allow us the ability to insert new technology faster than we have ever been able to do before."

While not mentioning the two senators' plan specifically, he said, "Other candidates will certainly feed technology into that future architecture--and...