Umbra’s STRATFI is an enhancement and scaling of Umbra’s current Moving Target Indication (MTI) Phase II program with AFWERX. This STRATFI development effort will enable Umbra to develop, test, and evaluate an on-orbit TRL 7 prototype of an N-satellite operational system and culminates in on-orbit demonstrations of the Umbra Crazy Train capability. Umbra will build four next generation high resolution X-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Satellites with wide area modes, edge compute capabilities, narrowband data links, and advancements in ground and flight software. Umbra will launch these four satellites into low earth orbit and fly them in formation for a 6-month long demo period where Umbra will test and evaluate Crazy Train; a scalable, repeatable approach to synoptic search-and-find missions for open ocean and maritime applications.
Score Rationale
AFWERX STRATFI is one of the premier fast-track OT instruments available, earning a top pathway score, and the $60M ceiling with an explicit TRL 7 on-orbit prototype culminating in a 6-month operational demonstration represents a clear, substantial transition pathway. Timeline realism is moderate — the response deadline is unknown and the scope (building and launching four SAR satellites) is extraordinarily ambitious even for a well-capitalized team, making execution risk high regardless of instrument speed. AI/ML fit scores a 3 because while MTI and synoptic search-and-find are genuinely AI-shaped problems (object detection, anomaly detection, change detection on SAR imagery), the dominant work here is hardware — satellite bus fabrication, launch, formation flying, and edge compute integration — making AI a meaningful but secondary component to the deep space systems engineering challenge.