SCOUT Space announces it has been selected by AFWERX for a Phase II SBIR in the amount of $1.25M focused on developing a flight software suite for critical space missions with autonomous sensor-driven multi-agent guidance and navigation capabilities, to address the most pressing challenges in the Department of the Air Force (DAF). The Air Force Research Laboratory and AFWERX have partnered to streamline the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) process by accelerating the small business experience through faster proposal to award timelines, changing the pool of potential applicants by expanding opportunities to small business and eliminating bureaucratic overhead by continually implementing process improvement changes in contract execution. The DAF began offering the Open Topic SBIR/STTR program in 2018 which expanded the range of innovations the DAF funded and now on August 09, 2023, SCOUT Space will start its journey to create and provide innovative capabilities that will strengthen the national defense of the United States of America.
"SCOUT’s space-based sensing competencies dovetail well into the counterspace mission,” Sergio Gallucci, SCOUT’s Co-founder & CTO, cited. “We have an opportunity through this program to leverage our on-board autonomy capabilities to produce extensible flight software for safe collaborative operations. Data-based and inference-based decision-making, rather than relying on explicit commands, is one of the foundations for autonomy capabilities we’ll only need more as risks continue to proliferate in orbit.”
SCOUT’s Co-founder and CEO, Eric Ingram added, “The space domain is rapidly becoming a less permissive and more contested environment in which critical U. Government and commercial satellite constellations are under potential threat from near-peer adversaries. The development of this software and capabilities is a necessary step forward to ensure the safety of critical space assets in an era of increasing uncertainty. This contract enables SCOUT to continue to grow our relationship with government customers and provides the opportunity to leverage our expertise for national security needs.”
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the US government.
For more information visit: https://www.scout.space