Industry Applauds Bill to Add $15 million for Government Imagery Purchases By Brian Berger Space News Staff Writer posted: 10:29 am ET 14 October 2002
HOUSTON -- U.S. commercial remote sensing companies were pleased to see that the 2003 Defense Appropriations Act approved by the U.S. House of Representatives Oct. 10 included $15 million for government purchases of satellite imagery. The Senate still needs to approve the bill before it is sent to the president.
The additional funds follow an edict by the George Tenet, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, earlier this summer, ordering the U.S. intelligence community to buy mapping imagery from the commercial remote sensing industry.
One industry source said that the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) is starting to place orders for data products and that orders are expected to pick up once NIMA receives its 2003 funding.
Although the U.S. government's new budget year began Oct. 1, federal agencies have been operating according to 2002 budget plans until 2003 budgets are signed into law.
Meanwhile, U.S. imagery companies are not anticipating that NIMA will exercise what they call checkbook shutter control should the United States invade Iraq in the weeks or months ahead.
At the outset of U.S. military actions in Afghanistan, NIMA purchased all available imagery of the region to keep it out of potentially hostile hands.
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