Month: May 2025

Planetary Systems AI Awarded Second Annual License Subscription by U.S. Space Systems Command’s Space Domain Awareness (SDA) TAP Lab 

From the period of 5 February through 29 April 2025, Planetary Systems AI successfully demonstrated the ability to use generative AI to read large quantities of semi/unstructured text and imagery to populate the Lab’s Target Model Database (TMDB). 

PSAI Awarded Annal 12-Month Subscription License

New York, NY, May 12, 2024 – Planetary Systems AI (PSAI), a dual-use space and defense tech company accelerating data flow and insight generation for decision-making in the space sector to optimize planetary support operations, announced today that it has been awarded a second annual subscription license by U.S. Space Systems Command’s Space Domain Awareness (SDA) Tools Applications and Processing (TAP) Lab after the completion of the Apollo Accelerator Cohort 6. This program enabled PSAI to demonstrate its capabilities for image-to-text object classification combined with the use of PSAI’s initial subscription license to the SDA TAP Lab – an application using generative AI to read large quantities of semi/unstructured text and imagery to populate the Lab’s Target Model Database (TMDB). The TMDB, once populated with details about a satellite’s payloads, power, and propulsion systems can be used to evaluate potentially threatening close approaches and automated alert system for the Welder’s Arc battle management system. 

“Welder’s Arc is a fully automated, multi-vendor, prototype space threat warning system building partnerships with industry, academia, government, partners, and allies (IAGPA) in the SDA TAP Lab. There have been over 100 companies that have participated in Apollo Accelerator from almost a dozen countries totaling several hundred individuals. Retention is fairly high. We are changing commercial SDA market forces for the better to ensure long term viability of the small business base.” – SDA TAP Lab Chief, Major Sean Allen on the vision of the Apollo Accelerator.

“PSAI is leveraging our multi-modal AI expertise and capabilities to work with the U.S. government, its allies, and our commercial partners to ensure that automated decision support subsystems are accelerated and enhanced through our AI solutions,” said CEO & Chief Space Officer Cindy Chin. “Our CTO Aaron Sloman and Mack Reed on behalf of the team were excited to showcase computer vision experience in an image-to-text capability during the SDA TAP Lab Cohort 6 Demo Day with U.S. Space Systems Command, the U.S. Space Force, U.S. Space Command and other government and industry partners.” 

PSAI will continue to increase space vehicle imagery to its AI model and agentic AI capabilities in its architecture, responding to maneuver alerts in a given scenario related to threat warning and assessment. The current database is structured for direct integration with, query by, and display in SDA tools. PSAI’s APIs and applications can be used with maneuver-event data for inferring potential for threats and determining proximity. Entries were filtered for validity by an AI model trained on Joint Commercial Operations (JCO) Notice to Space Operators records and other trusted analytic sources.

About SDA TAP Lab (https://sdataplab.org/): The Space Domain Awareness TAP Lab accelerates the delivery of space battle management software to operational units. We decompose kill chains, prioritize needs with operators, map needs to technologies, and onboard tech to existing platforms quickly. We partner with industry, academia, and across the government to succeed. 

About Planetary Systems AI (www.planetarysystems.ai): PSAI is a planetary support company accelerating data flow and insight generation for decision-making in the space sector, optimizing planetary support operations.

Planetary Systems AI Press Contact:

Mack Reed
Head of Product
E: pr@planetarysystems.ai

Download a PDF of this Press Release

An application interface showing a satellite photo being analyzed
PSAI demonstrated its AI image analyzer, capable of estimating spacecraft size, mass, equipment, and capabilities.

Last week, PSAI demonstrated our expanded AI toolset for space domain awareness to an audience of military analysts, officers, data scientists, and interested contractors at the SDA TAP Lab’s Demo Day. 

We had capped lab Cohorts 4 and 5 in October and January by showing that our AI and machine-learning methods can generate deeply-detailed capability profiles of thousands of spacecraft from millions of public data records.

Output text from an image analyzing application designed to identify satellite capabilities.
Results from a live test of the image analyzer showing the physical characteristics and capabilities that it estimated after ingesting a photo of a satellite. Click to view this full size.

During Cohort 6 – as shown in last week’s demo – we developed an image analyzer, adding a significant new capability to the lab’s work helping U.S. Space Force Guardians identify and assess unknown, concealed, or hostile spacecraft. 

Our newest tool can ingest a photo of a payload – either from orbit or in a pre-launch clean room – and perform a pixel-by-pixel analysis of its potential capabilities. 

The tool estimates the spacecraft’s size, shape, and mass. It counts and estimates the size of antennas and solar panels. And from these and other visual clues, it can infer onboard capabilities including sensors, cameras, radio equipment and frequencies, and the presence and orientation of thrusters. 

By deploying this tool in their analytical processes, Guardians can gain context for the decisions they must make when interrogating targets for evidence of camouflage, concealment, deception, and maneuvers; What sensors are on board? How powerful might its solar panels, batteries, and thrusters be? Can it take high-resolution photos, jam our radio frequencies, or fire an energy weapon? 

While this tool is in its infancy, we hope to refine and grow its capabilities further when Cohort 7 kicks off later this month. 

Watch this space.