The Air Force Research Laboratory has tapped Virginia’s Trusted Space to build autonomy software designed to make teams of satellites safer and more resilient.
Under the cost-plus-fixed-fee deal, worth up to $14.83M, the company will research, develop and mature software prototypes and test them in orbit, with a focus on making multi-agent autonomous space systems trustworthy, safe and resilient, per the Department of Defense. AFRL put $516,346 on the contract at signing.
Work will run from Trusted Space’s Leesburg, Virginia base and Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, with completion expected in August 2031. The program targets coordination and fault-management challenges in satellite teams, the kind of software that will one day let swarms operate with less human oversight.
Trusted Space previously built autonomous fault detection and classification for satellites, experience that feeds the new effort. The award lands as the Space Force pushes autonomy across its portfolio, from on-orbit servicing to collision avoidance, where the Pentagon sees software decisions outpacing the audit trails built to explain them.
No launch vehicles or hardware were included in the award; the focus is software that decides, coordinates and explains itself in orbit.
