Arthur McMiler
Colorado Springs-based space systems and software company Auria has secured a four-year Air Force Research Laboratory contract to mature its Satellite Fusion, Inference and Reasoning Engine, or SaFIRE, satellite onboard architecture.
The contract calls for experiments to validate SaFIRE’s autonomous planning capability to support enhanced domain awareness and satellite resiliency, Auria said Tuesday.
The company added that it will deploy its commercial-of-the-shelf Autonomous Planning System, or APS, in the experimentation that will focus on providing the optimal sensor collection capability of the satellite onboard architecture’s agile camera assembly used to monitor resident space objects, or RSOs, in a satellite’s neighborhood.
Auria’s experimentation will also include tests to demonstrate SaFIRE searches for new RSOs for tracking and monitoring.
To deliver an optimized resource plan for SaFIRE’s observation, Auria will consider such factors as the host satellite’s sensor capabilities, RSOs’ orbital dynamics and local lighting conditions.
The APS that Auria will use in the contract’s tasks was fully qualified in the Space Development Agency’s Prototype On-orbit Experimental Test Bed project implemented on Loft Orbital’s YAM-3 mission in 2022.
