Why though? We have spy sats galore. We have drones galore. Why build or re-certify a spy plane? What can we get from such an expensive project that we can't get much more cheaply in other ways?
They clearly feel it’s cheaper/faster to get this working than to try and create a new mach 3+ aircraft.
With 25 years of new tech maybe they can push it even faster.
NASA's SR-71 was used for high altitude and high speed science projects.