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SAN FRANCISCO – The National Reconnaissance Office awarded a contract modification to BlackSky Technology to accelerate development of AROS broad-area-collection satellites.
“The effort funds a direct path toward a flight ready multi-spectral, large-area mapping spacecraft and foundation data collection system in 2028,” according to the June 9 news release.
BlackSky, a provider of satellite imagery and analytics based in Herndon, Virginia, announced plans in 2025 to develop AROS satellites for applications that require broad geographical coverage including country-scale mapping, maritime monitoring and 3D digital twin applications.
“Developing BlackSky’s AROS constellation in partnership with the U.S. government cements a major step in securing U.S. global space competitiveness, resilience and maintaining critical operational continuity as commercially available foundation data becomes capacity-constrained in the coming years,” Blacksky CEO Brian O’Toole said in a statement. “BlackSky will design, develop and field the next generation of high-performance, AI-ready geospatial foundation data satellites, leveraging the proven heritage and reliability of our advanced Gen-3 architecture and vertically integrated agile manufacturing infrastructure.”
BlackSky’s AROS satellites will operate as an extension of the company’s existing Earth-observation fleet, incorporating the company’s space, software and platform stack.
In orbit, AROS large-area surveillance satellites will be able to tip and cue BlackSky’s high-resolution Gen-3 satellites. AI-enabled analytics will help the satellites work in tandem to detect and characterize aircraft, vessels and vehicles, the news release said.
“AROS will provide an optimal balance between leap-ahead technology capabilities at very competitive speed and economics and fill anticipated market gaps as aging commercial large area collection satellites come out of service,” O’Toole said.
BlackSky did not disclose the value of the NRO contract modification, nor is the company saying how many AROS satellites it plans to deploy.
Following the trend toward rapid data delivery, BlackSky’s system architecture will “showcase a new proprietary data pipeline” to provide real-time and retrospective AI analytics, model training and decision support tools.
“The modern AROS foundation enterprise is expected to support automated feature extraction, the generation of Earth digital twin systems and expedite the automated production of navigation safety applications,” the news release said.