If a U.S. company wants to point a camera at the Earth from orbit and sell the pictures, it needs a license from NOAA—specifically from the Office of Commercial Remote Sensing Regulatory Affairs—issued under 15 CFR Part 960. That rule implements the Land Remote Sensing Policy Act of 1992, which 15 CFR 960.4 defines as “the Land Remote Sensing Policy Act of 1992, as amended, codified at 51 U.S.C. 60101, et seq.” The license is distinct from the FAA launch license and the FCC spectrum authorization a satellite operator also needs; NOAA's authority reaches the imaging capability itself—what the sensor can see and produce. The defining feature of the current framework, adopted in a 2020 rewrite, is that not every imaging system is regulated the same way. Each is sorted into one of three tiers.

The tiering rule is 15 CFR 960.6. Within seven days of notifying an applicant that the application is complete, the Secretary—after consultation with the Secretaries of Defense and State as appropriate—determines the category. A system goes into Tier 1 if it “proposes a system with the capability to collect unenhanced data substantially the same as unenhanced data already available from entities or individuals not licensed under this part, such as foreign entities.” It goes into Tier 2 if comparable data is available, “but only from entities or individuals licensed under this part”—that is, only from other NOAA licensees. And it goes into Tier 3 if it can collect data “not substantially the same as unenhanced data already available from any domestic or foreign entity or individual.” The logic is comparative availability: the more novel the capability, the higher the tier.

"If the application proposes a system with the capability to collect unenhanced data substantially the same as unenhanced data already available from entities or individuals not licensed under this part, such as foreign entities, the Secretary shall categorize the application as Tier 1."— 15 CFR 960.6(a)(1), source

Why the tier matters

The tier a system lands in sets how much conditional oversight NOAA can impose. The 2020 framework's premise is that data already on the open market from unlicensed foreign sources cannot meaningfully be restricted by a U.S. licensing condition—so Tier 1 systems, whose output is already widely available, carry the lightest conditions. Tier 2 systems—where comparable data exists, but only from other U.S. licensees—can be subject to temporary conditions that match those already applied to the existing licensed providers, preserving a level playing field. Tier 3 systems, which can collect something genuinely unavailable elsewhere, are where NOAA's authority to impose temporary operating conditions is broadest, because the novel capability is the case the statute most directly contemplates. The structure pushes regulatory weight toward genuinely new capabilities and away from imaging that the global market already supplies.

The rule also builds in an interagency check. Section 960.6 provides that if the Secretary of Defense or State disagrees with the categorization, that Secretary may notify and request reconsideration—and the regulation specifies that such a request “may not be delegated below the Assistant Secretary level.” The high delegation floor signals that disputes over whether an imaging capability is novel or sensitive are meant to be resolved by senior officials, not working-level staff. National-security and foreign-policy equities sit alongside the commercial determination from the moment a system is categorized.

What "substantially the same" turns on

The whole tiering judgment hinges on whether a proposed system's output is “substantially the same” as data already available, and the rule's definition of “available” narrows what counts. Under 15 CFR 960.4, “available” means data “readily and consistently obtainable by an entity or individual other than the U.S. Government or a foreign government.” The exclusion of government sources is deliberate: imagery that only a government can obtain does not count as available for the comparison, so a commercial system offering that capability to the open market is treated as novel even if a government already collects something similar. The comparison is to the commercial and open market, not to classified or government-only collection.

Resolution is the axis operators watch most closely, and the rule gives it a defined metric. Section 960.4 defines ground sample distance, the standard resolution measure, and the comparison of a new system's GSD against what the market already supplies is central to whether its data is “substantially the same.” A constellation proposing imagery sharper than anything commercially available is a strong Tier 3 candidate; one matching widely sold foreign imagery falls toward Tier 1. The framework thus ties the regulatory category to two concrete, measurable facts—how sharp the imagery is and whether comparable imagery is already obtainable outside government—rather than to a subjective sense of how sensitive a system seems.

What "unenhanced data" and the tiers cover

The vocabulary is precise. The rule's definitions section, 15 CFR 960.4, anchors the technical terms the tiers turn on. It defines ground sample distance, or GSD, as “the common measurement for describing the spatial resolution of unenhanced data created from most remote sensing instruments,” and defines “available” as data that is “readily and consistently obtainable by an entity or individual other than the U.S. Government or a foreign government.” Resolution and availability are the practical axes: a system offering sharper imagery than anything already obtainable is a Tier 3 candidate, while one matching widely sold foreign imagery is Tier 1. The definitions also reach operational events—an “anomaly” is defined to include any significant deviation from a system's orbit and data-collection characteristics, the kind of event a licensee must report.

For an operator planning a constellation, the tiering rule is the first regulatory fork. It determines, within days of a complete application, how heavily NOAA's conditions will weigh on the system, and it ties that weight to a market fact—whether comparable imagery is already available, and from whom. The three tiers, written into 15 CFR 960.6, are the framework under which every U.S.-licensed commercial Earth-observation system now operates, and they are why two satellites with similar cameras can face very different conditions depending on what the rest of the market already sells.