PATRICK TUCKER and AUDREY DECKER
Congress is weighing reductions to the National Reconnaissance Office's budget for acquiring commercial satellite imagery, a move that could ultimately give China an edge in the influence domain and on the battlefield.
The cut could slow growth and innovation at U.S. remote-sensing companies, at a time when China's own burgeoning satellite-imagery industry is aggressively seeking clients. Though European countries are unlikely to become reliant on Chinese imagery, the same cannot be said for governments in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. If Chinese companies can offer comparable imagery at lower cost, the profits could fuel innovation at a pace that U.S. firms struggle to match.
That could leave U.S. adversaries in control of how the world perceives developing conflicts, warned Kari Bingen, director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and former deputy defense undersecretary for intelligence.
“If Chinese companies end up leading in this area, they would be positioned to become the partner of choice, to undercut our companies in the global marketplace, and ultimately could control the narrative of what happens on Earth,” Bingen said. “On February 23, 2022, instead of Western companies publicly releasing imagery of the buildup of Russian forces along the Ukrainian border—and marrying that with intelligence on what we anticipated—imagine if those images and that narrative had come from China?”
The Trump administration is weighing a proposal to reduce funding for NRO’s Electro-Optical Commercial Layer program from $300 million a year to $200 million, SpaceNews first reported. And NRO requested no funding for its commercial radar program in 2026, despite expectations that it would ask for about $30 million, according to industry and congressional sources.
NRO usually doesn’t prioritize requests for commercial because officials know Congress will add money there through the appropriations process, according to one congressional staffer.
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