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Troy Meink: “The NRO is responsible for procuring pixels.”

Featuring: Troy Meink, Secretary of the Air Force | National

Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series

Published October 17, 2024 | Video Starts at 45:17

I guess. So. Thanks, Trisha. Teresa. So I think, I hate to say absolutes, right, because there are always exceptions to the rule. Right. But in general, The NRO is responsible for procuring pixels. Right. So this is why we have the big contracts with all the commercial providers to procure pixels. And then NGA really looking at procuring analytics. Now sometimes that, that does get blurred. (45:17–45:21)

CLAIM

Asserts that the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) is responsible for procuring satellite imagery.

This is an excerpt from a raw transcript. The assertions have not been audited or verified. Tap the video to view the source footage and understand the context.

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Troy Meink

“We are expanding the constellation we have really probably to the largest constellation really in history.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 05:41-05:49
“Over 12 launches, not all of them from a proliferation perspective, but many of them putting more than 100 payloads on orbit just again in…”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 05:55-06:05
“Over the last several years, we've launched five different rockets from five different launch facilities spread across three continents.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 11:12-11:23
“The Electro Optical contract we awarded a couple years ago, which is about $4 billion over 10 years, is an example.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 11:46-11:53
“The primary mission of the National Reconnaissance Office is to help maintain the US Intelligence advantage globally.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 02:11-02:19
“NRO has a broad set of customers, obviously war fighters.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 02:35-02:39
“We've been doing this extensively really since the first Gulf War.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 02:47-02:52
“Our mission is becoming more challenging and more important than ever.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 03:15-03:19
“The NRO has been at the leading edge really for years.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 03:52-03:57
“We are evolving from dozens to really to hundreds of satellites.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 06:29-06:35
“This is to make the collection capability more responsive, timely, while increasing our resiliency.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 06:34-06:41
“In the last 60 years of our existence, we've been dealing with rapidly growing data volumes that we have to process and support…”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 07:20-07:29
“China and Russia continue to challenge our nation's advantage. Each has developed and deployed counter space capabilities that are designed…”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 08:40-08:53
“Cyber...probably one of the largest growths and expenses within the NRO percentage wise has been in the cyber arena.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 08:57-16:52
“It's obviously very concerning that the Russians may be considering incorporation of nuclear weapons into their basically counter space…”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 09:03-09:16
“China is looking to deny our ability to operate in the space, creating a heightened threat environment.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 09:16-09:23
“It's essential for the NRO to continue to modernize ISR capabilities and the supporting ground infrastructure.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 09:42-09:50
“Commercial partnerships have evolved to rank among the NRO's most effective means in meeting some of the customer requirements in achieving…”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 10:23-10:33
“The NRO has historically been a key player in those military operations, providing intelligence to support them.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 12:19-12:25
“Data collected in process oftentimes supports both Title 10 and Title 50 customers at the same time.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 12:54-13:00
“One of the most important relationships obviously is with US Space Force.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 13:31-13:36
“Success is directly related to talent and the workforce, particularly with the rapidly evolving technology environment.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 14:09-14:25
“Cyber and some of the threats to our ground infrastructure is probably the biggest and most likely threat we will see.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 17:05-17:13
“The rate of change given the threats we face...requires a rate of change that's really faster than maybe almost since the beginning of the…”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 18:40-18:47
“A third of the interim workforce is essentially DoD, most of them being Space Force, Air Force.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 20:42-20:48
“Many of the timelines we're talking about today, the NRO is already supporting.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 23:40-23:45
“Silent Barker is... one of those missions that is critical to both all of space.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 24:53-25:16
“The vehicles are on orbit. It's going to be a critical, critical capability with additional capability coming in the future.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 25:51-25:59
“The NRO was a joint DOD, Title 10, Title 50, IC organization from inception.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 27:47-27:55
“The NRO is a joint organization supporting both the DoD and the IC intelligence side.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 27:58-28:08
“Most of the data we collect is used both by Title 10 and Title 50 because many of the missions heavily overlap.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 28:43-28:50
“The data we collect today and going forward is distributed to everybody.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 28:56-29:00
“There's been a big focus at the DNI ODNI level to lower classification to enable dissemination.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 30:41-31:06
“The NRO is a big champion of [lowering classification levels].”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 31:13-31:16
“We expect to be one of the first users of NSSL Phase 3.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 32:36-32:41
“We've launched on over the last couple years on 10 or five different rockets.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 32:48-33:00
“Decreasing launch costs have been a big enabler in what we've been able to do.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 34:05-34:09
“We had one Maxar, the predecessor to Maxar, that was it. Right. You know, now we have three on contract.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 36:18-36:28
“Now we have, I don't know what the number is right now, but it's, it's, it's well, was well north of five different vendors, probably seven…”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 36:53-37:04
“I don't know if we've been had a data scientist in the NRO ten years ago now we have a lot of them.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 38:43-38:49
“We don't have to develop them from scratch. In many cases, we're just adapting them to our environment.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 40:14-40:19
“It's like on the order of 50 applicants, for every interim, we bring in [to] NRO.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 41:18-41:18
“Many of the data scientists we have were ones that we sent back to school.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 41:41-41:46
“NGA really looking at procuring analytics.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 45:28-45:33
“The NRO's been asked both by the DOD and AIC to procure pixels.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 46:17-46:23
“NGA in the end is responsible for managing tasking coming in from across the DOD and the IC.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 46:25-46:33
“The NRO itself does not do procure anything direct Starlink.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 48:29-48:35
“Space domain or space-based sensors are critical in some cases.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 49:28-49:33
“Ground-based sensors and different phenomenologies of ground-based sensors are the best answer in other cases.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 49:33-49:42
“Fusing all that data together from the commercial world and government systems is critical.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 49:45-49:51
“You have to understand what's going on in the environment and it requires all those sensors to do it.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 50:12-50:18
“Different orbits have different exposures to solar storms.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 51:26-51:37
“You really have to look at every piece of digital equipment and do testing to understand the vulnerabilities.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 51:56-52:10
“The rapid advancement in digital electronics that's been fueled by the commercial industry is probably the biggest driver in what we're able…”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 52:27-52:39
“Even solar arrays behave differently in space than they do on the ground.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 52:38-52:43
“Larger rockets are cheaper per pound to orbit.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 55:08-55:15
“It's more cost-effective to buy a smaller rocket for one satellite to a particular orbit.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 55:24-55:36
“We've used Minotaur, not really commercial, but it's smaller rocket.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 56:11-56:15
“We did some obviously with, with Virgin out of the UK didn't go well.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 56:15-56:21
“We do on over processing and we use various techniques to oftentimes to lower the data volume metrics down.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 57:26-57:41
“We do that on the ground as well.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 57:40-57:43
“We are definitely employing all those across the entire spectrum room.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 58:13-58:18