Defense, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies’ missions demand more than current commercial AIS-based “dark vessel” and irregular shipping traffic solutions provide. Solutions must detect AND positively identify non-cooperative vessels of interest with persistence AND high confidence to efficiently eliminate nefarious actors’ hiding places.
Next-generation commercial remote sensing space solutions, such as those being implemented by Maxar and its industry partners, combine persistence, resolution, broad area coverage, advanced ground processing, and web-based dissemination to provide mission-grade maritime security. Intraday revisit from commercial very-high-resolution electro-optical (EO) and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) assets provide rapid dark vessel detection and visual identification while minimizing coverage gaps and maintaining custody of vessels of interest. Advanced ground processing not only identifies vessels of interest and automatically cross-cues collection, but also delivers vessel information to users in missionrelevant timelines to take action.
These on-going investments will make commercial maritime security-as-a-service a reality for comprehensively meeting government requirements. This, combined with on-going security assistance investments, commercial in-theater downlink capability and existing global AIS data collection from commercial providers, can realize the vision of a coalition-operated maritime security network, providing and consuming share-able maritime security information.