Nichols Martin
The U.S. Air Force's AFWERX organization has named HawkEye 360 among the top 26 participants that will advance into the next phase of an interactive challenge to transform the space innovation landscape.
HawkEye said Thursday it was downselected from 809 proposers from various countries in the EngageSpace challenge and competed under the Department of Defense Commercial Space Partnerships category, where each team explored commercial satellite and payload technologies to help expand the DoD portfolio.
The company seeks to offer USAF and its mission partners an on-orbit satellite platform for collecting, storing and transmitting radio frequency geospatial intelligence.
Rob Rainhart, chief operating officer at HawkEye 360, said the company is ready to expand its work with the service branch to build an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platform for global missions.
The Herndon, Virginia-based firm also plans to update its signals database and analytics tools to align with USAF interests.
AFWERX picked 25 teams from the U.S. and one Canada-based group to find pathways forward in revolutionizing the space ecosystem. The challenge's other themes were Global Space Transport and Delivery, Persistent ISR and Space Asset Resiliency.
