Belleau Labs
Back to contracts

Leveraging On-board Perception Data Products for Tactically-Responsive Counterspace Autonomy and Intelligence

AFWERX · AFWERX TACFI · AFWERX

AI-Readiness Score
17/25
Pathway Speed
4/5
Timeline Realism
3/5
Problem Framing
3/5
AI / ML Fit
4/5
Award + Transition
3/5

Award

$1,897,754
Award ceiling
SCOUT SPACE INC
Awardee
Posted August 7, 2024

Description

Scout Space Inc. proposes to develop and demonstrate advanced algorithms for perception and autonomy space intelligence capabilities as part of the TACFI Sequential Phase II program. This effort builds upon the success of a prior Phase II initiative supported by USSF Delta 2, which demonstrated significant improvements in collection frequency and RSO custody through proliferated, hosted commercial SDA payloads. The proposed solution will incorporate change and maneuver detection, association, and intent estimation into a broader self-protect suite for Scout's SDA payloads. Our approach includes developing a cloud-based data aggregation and exploitation system that integrates data from various SDA sources and ground station networks, ensuring data integrity through algorithmic capture and consistency checks using IOD and OCBE techniques. The data will be delivered via a secure user portal. Additionally, we will deploy Scout's parallelizable tools  on AWS VMs for scalable data processing. This project aims to enhance space domain awareness and provide actionable intelligence in near-real-time or real-time to the space warfighter. The demonstration will culminate in a full C2 architecture, MVP ground support, and data handling system using representative flight hardware systems, aligned with the Department of the Air Force's strategic needs for rapid decision-making and operational imperatives for space order of battle.

Score Rationale

TACFI Sequential Phase II is a modern fast-track instrument that earns a high pathway score, though it is still a structured SBIR-adjacent vehicle rather than a pure OTA or DIU CSO. The AI/ML fit is genuine — change detection, maneuver detection, association, and intent estimation on RSO data are legitimately AI-shaped perception and prediction problems with a defined data source (onboard SDA payloads) — but the heavy emphasis on cloud infrastructure, C2 architecture, and data handling pipelines dilutes the pure AI signal toward integration work. The award ceiling of ~$1.9M is above the $1M threshold but well below $5M, and while the USSF Delta 2 lineage implies a real transition customer, no explicit follow-on production pathway or program of record is named in the solicitation.

Source

View original posting
Back to all contracts