Gallucci-led Team Wins $1.5M USSF Award with Stanford
As seen on SpaceWatch.global, SpaceNews, and SCOUT.space.
Note: The program, following an initial kick-off period, was transitioned under Dr. Jordan Maxwell as its sustaining Principal Investigator.
ALEXANDRIA, VA, (August 10, 2023) - SCOUT Space Inc., a space technology company dedicated to enabling a new era of space safety and transparency and leading in-space observation data provider, today announced it has been selected by SpaceWERX for a Phase II STTR in the amount of $1.5M USD, focused on “Robust Cross-Domain Optical Navigation with Space-Based Sensors” to address the most pressing challenges in the Department of the Air Force (DAF). SCOUT was awarded the Phase II Orbital Prime STTR in collaboration with Stanford University’s Space Rendezvous Laboratory (SLAB), founded and led by Professor Simone D’Amico.
“The characterization of location, motion, and other data of objects in space for space domain awareness requires well-defined processes for processing sensor data. Our work with Prof. D’Amico’s lab is exciting because it lets us tackle an environment - the semi-resolved domain - which is very indeterminate today, and in which few algorithms are proven,” stated Sergio Gallucci, SCOUT’s Co-founder and CTO. “We hope to facilitate decision-making across the entire range of rendezvous and proximity operations by achieving continuity and convergence in state estimation from these different phenomenologies.”
SCOUT will collaborate with SLAB to enhance Space Mobility and Logistics capabilities by exploring the boundary between characterization of resolved and non-resolved imagery, and working to bridge it for space-based sensing.
“We are poised to increase the technology readiness level of new algorithms at the intersection of astrodynamics, nonlinear estimation, and machine learning to enable new mission concepts in the area of In-Space Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing (ISAM),” stated Prof. Simone D’Amico, SLAB’s Founder and Director. “The US Space Force and SCOUT are giving us a unique opportunity to reach flight readiness with spacecraft navigation technologies that would have normally taken several years to accomplish.”
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, SCOUT Space will start its journey to create and provide innovative capabilities that will strengthen the national defense of the United States of America.
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 U.S. government.