The growing requirements for a future U.S. reconnaissance satellite program are sparking a turf battle over which government agency will buy and operate it. They are also raising concerns in the young commercial remote-sensing market that its largest source of business, the U.S. government, may decide to build its own systems, forcing companies such as DigitalGlobe and GeoEye to adapt their business models for more commercial sales.At issue is the Broad Area Surveillance Intelligence Capability (Basic) program, a once-classified effort managed by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) to design and acquire satellites capable of collecting wide-area electro-optical and infrared imagery with notional resolution of 0.25-0.5 meters (0.8-1.6 ft.). Though the program has been discussed in a general sense in the media, intelligence officials say it remains sensitive and they decline to use the Basic acronym openly.
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