Session Ten: Space Industry Panel - Walter Scott

1. Service Level Agreements
A New Acquisition Model for a Budget
Constrained Era
Image: Iran | July 5, 2011 | 50cm

2. Service Level Agreement (SLA)
• Vendor provides infrastructure and
operations to deliver a service
• Customer makes stable, multi-year
commitment to acquire the service

3. Consumer Electronics

4. Dedicated Manufacturing

5. SLA Manufacturing
• Seasonal demand
• Can repurpose
excess capacity
• Can surge if needed

6. EnhancedView (EV) SLA
QuickBird
• NGA contract to acquire WorldView-2
unclassified, shareable imagery
WorldView-1
• 10 yr term, monthly fee
• Priority access to 5-satellite On-orbit
0.6m GSD
imaging constellation for much
On-orbit
less than cost of ownership On-orbit 0.46m GSD
0.5m GSD
• Guaranteed capacity, accuracy,
WorldView-3 WorldView-4
timeliness, availability
• Includes hosting and delivery
• Continuous improvement in
capacity, # sats, resolution,
2014 2018
timelines, etc 0.3m GSD <=0.3m GSD
• Firm fixed price, low cost risk

7. DigitalGlobe Satellite Acquisitions
Schedule Growth (Percent) 160%
140%
120%
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
-200% 0% 200% 400% 600% 800%
Cost Growth (Percent)

8. DigitalGlobe Satellite Acquisitions
Schedule Growth (Percent) 160%
140%
120%
100%
80%
60% WorldView-1
40%
QuickBird, WorldView-2
20%
0%
-200% 0% 200% 400% 600% 800%
Cost Growth (Percent)
(All cost growth has been absorbed entirely by
DigitalGlobe; none was passed on to the USG)

9. SLAs Enable This Performance
• Stable requirements
• Stable funding
• Stable, experienced staffing
• Managed innovation
• Eating our own cooking

10. Why Are SLAs Better?
Traditional Acquisition SLA Acquisition
• You buy the car • You sign up for an SLA
• You drive the car • We drive the car
• You pay for gas • We pay for gas
• We fix the car if it breaks
• You fix the car if it breaks
• We add a better car every few years
• You buy a new car every few years
• When your relatives visit, we provide
extra cars for their use
• And it all costs less than ownership

11. SLAs Most Applicable When
• Up-front investment is needed to create required
infrastructure
• Activity requires development and operations
• Long term, (mostly) predictable needs
• Bleeding edge technology not required
– SLA does allow for technology insertion
• There are multiple customers across whom to
spread costs, and enabling surge capacity

12. SLA Model is Applicable To
 Imagery
Geospatial production
• & Analysis?
• Telecommunications
• Launch
• Weather?
• Cyber?