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(U) First Overhead Partnership Conference (OPC) Held
FROM: LCDR Denise Schiavone, USN
Spaceborne Planning Division (S3331)
Run Date: 09/29/2005
(S//SI) In May of this year, NSA's Office of Overhead (OOH) and RAINFALL co-sponsored the
first OPC. Participants from GCHQ, DSD, NSA's Extended Enterprise Management, Link Access
FORNSAT and Spaceborne Planning Divisions, Overhead Collection Management Center (OCMC),
as well as representatives from each of the Cryptologic Centers (CCs), Cryptologic Center
Concept Partners (CCCPs), Mission Ground Stations (MGS), and NRO's Ground Systems Office
(GSO), came together to discuss various Overhead SIGINT Enterprise issues. OverheadFORNSAT collaboration and a multi-access approach to requirements satisfaction were of
particular interest.
(S//SI) Specific conference objectives focused on improving partnerships in order to enhance
Overhead's capability to meet current and future requirements. During an aggressive five-day
agenda, participants had the opportunity to:
discuss and understand specific collection, processing, and geolocation capabilities at
various locations;
identify specific technological limitations in collecting and processing target
communications;
understand each sites' resident ability to develop new capabilities to exploit target
communications;
identify opportunities for collaborative development efforts;
identify and document MGSes' and CCs' critical success criteria for the July 2005
transition to the Enhanced Low Capacity COMINT collection system;
increase information and data sharing, enhance our global partnerships, and improve our
Enterprise customer service.
(S//SI) A recurring theme throughout the conference was information sharing within the
Overhead and FORNSAT communities. Both NSA/Spaceborne Planning Division (SPD) and
NRO/GSO took a joint action to develop a web portal to capture Overhead capabilities and
anticipatory developmental initiatives throughout the Overhead enterprise, providing linkage to
web portals of other access providers to enhance multi-access response. NSA/SPD and OCMC
are also providing an Outreach Team to educate Community partners on the overhead collection
management and system action requirements process. Other outcomes from the conference
include increased emphasis on improving collaboration with Second Party Partners by ensuring
full access to key information, and renewed headquarters efforts to Overhead mission
assessment. The conference also looked at ways that Overhead could help make greater strides
in supporting SIGDEV Strategy and Governance (SSG) activities and initiatives.
(S) Overall, conference participants agreed that the OPC provided an outstanding forum for
working a number of key strategic and current issues. We learned that whether at NSA HQs,
GCHQ, DSD, or in the field, we basically share the same concerns and the same desire to seek
solutions; and that we make our greatest progress when we seek answers collaboratively across
the Enterprise. Additional information about the OPC and tracking of conference actions can be
found at the Partnership Conference website .
(U//FOUO) Point of Contact: LCDR Denise Schiavone, SID/Spaceborne Planning Division,
secure.
"(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet
without the consent of S0121 (DL sid_comms)."
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DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108