an officer in camouflage fatigues addresses an audience from a podium, standing before an orange wall and a display monitor
U.S. Space Force Col. Gina Peterson addresses the audience at the SDA TAP Lab’s Demo Day on Jan. 30, 2025

Space domain awareness (SDA)  – and all the data that must flow to support it – no longer hovers in a theoretical future.  

Today, spacecraft operators must know swiftly and reliably what space trash, errant satellite, or hostile might threaten their operations – and the discipline is crying out for investment.

For the well-equipped U.S. military, better SDA tools are under development as a complex and powerful orbital-defense system at the United States Space Force’s SDA TAP Lab. That’s where we have been collaborating these past six months with dozens of other companies. 

In the Lab’s Cohort 5, Planetary Systems AI finished building AI tools that help U.S. Space Force Guardians identify the launch history, onboard sensors, and jamming frequencies of space vehicles that are hidden, unknown, or potential threats. 

As we accelerate into Cohort 6 next week, one thing has become very clear: This vital project – and indeed SDA overall – needs a huge boost in operating budget to keep pace with the space boom.

With more companies and international partners joining the SDA TAP (Tools, Applications & Processing) Lab, more payloads and satellites reaching orbit, and the increasing risk of collision with debris and each other impacting critical communications and cybersecurity infrastructure on the ground, it will be difficult to keep up with the pace of innovation such as the SDA TAP Lab’s rapidly-expanding work without more Congressional and the Pentagon’s monetary support or capital investment from the satellite and telecommunications industry to protect their in-orbit assets. 

 

a group of technologists and researchers assemble for a group photo
Cohort 5 of the SDA TAP Lab’s Apollo Accelerator project

The SDA TAP Lab needs a significantly bigger budget to support its complex logistics, the cohort’s rising headcount, and a newly-available, multi-terabyte source of SDA data that must be imported, sorted, and made available to us and international partners to continue the work. 

The need will be even greater for the commercial sector, where spacecraft operators work with SDA discipline in mind but without universally-available tools at hand.

While the Lab is building tools to sharpen the U.S. Space Force’s awareness and improve the timeliness and accuracy of the Guardians’ response, those military tools won’t be available to civilians. 

 

 

an executive stands before an array of display monitors talking with a uniformed U.S. Space Force general
PSAI CEO Cindy Chin and Aquarious Workman present to Lt. General Douglas A. Schiess during the Demo Day on Jan. 30, 2025 at the SDA TAP Lab

 

For commercial launch and orbital companies, U.S. Guardians are tasked with issuing notifications to space operators. These email advisories advise U.S. allies and corporations who subscribes to them whenever a rocket launch is detected or an orbiting spacecraft makes a maneuver. 

But the notifications don’t deliver operational context; While Guardians have access to multiple SDA data sources, sensors, satellites and other tools to support their defense-oriented mission (and will soon have the TAP Lab’s defense system as well), no such service exists to warn and protect the commercial sector against orbital mishaps. 

It is up to launch and orbital companies to blend orbital data sources with whatever in-house SDA experience they might have to keep their spacecraft and space assets safe. Therefore, more capital investment in this critical infrastructure is needed in and adjacent to orbit before calamity happens.

 

 

A slide depicting the benefits of delivering satellite capability data to USSF warfighters
A slide from PSAI’s presentation to the SDA TAP Lab explaining the benefit our work has brought to the U.S. Space Force’s battle management system

Just as Planetary Systems AI is bringing deep experience in artificial intelligence, machine learning and data fusion to SDA for the U.S. Space Force, we plan to deliver SDA solutions for our partners in the commercial sector and their space strategies

Watch this space.

Contact: Mack Reed, Head of Product, mack@planetarysystems.ai

Aquarious Workman, CISM, Head of Cybersecurity for Planetary Systems AI, demonstrates the company’s AI service for U.S. Space Force

Colorado Springs, CO. – The Planetary Systems AI team capped three months of intensive multidisciplinary work this week with a demonstration of the company’s capabilities in AI-driven data management for space domain awareness (SDA) at the U.S. Space Force’s SDA TAP Lab

By aggregating more than 2.3 million open-source records on satellites owned by U.S. and foreign entities, the team was able to build out a body of knowledge that will help the Space Force spot and defend military, government, and commercial spacecraft against hostile actions by other countries in space.

Aquarious Workman, PSAI’s Head of Cybersecurity, presented the demo to an audience of investors and U.S. Department of Defense officials, surrounded by nearly 60 companies, many of whom the company had collaborated with closely during Demo Day for Cohort 4 of the Lab’s Apollo Accelerator program.

The company will be continuing its work at the SDA TAP Lab into Cohort 5, which kicks off Nov. 5 and runs until late January. 



At the recent NYSE Wired East Coast AI Leaders’ Reception & Media Event at South Street Seaport and at the NYSE Space Summit, Planetary Systems AI had the honor to share the massive opportunities with space data in the space sector our innovative AI solutions and vision for the future, led by CEO Cindy Chin, FRSA.

The NYSE Space Summit brought together leading voices in the space industry to explore opportunities for growth and innovation. Executives from key space companies and institutional investors discussed how public markets are supporting the space sector, highlighting the intersection of innovation, regulation, and investment. The event emphasized the increasing role of space in shaping industries beyond aerospace, including finance, technology, and sustainability. Discussions ranged from advancements in space technology including artificial intelligence to the growing importance of satellite connectivity and space exploration in economic development.

Chin articulated the challenges with spacedata opportunities in AI with the company’s strategic goals and collaborative initiatives during an interview above the New York Stock Exchange floor with John Furrier of SiliconANGLE & theCUBE to make clear that PSAI is poised to make a significant impact in the space tech landscape.

NYSE Wired is an open-source community built to support entrepreneurs and their companies building cutting-edge AI technologies.

Second in a series of notes from our residency at SDA TAP Lab:

We are working to solve a core problem in business:  Everyone is drowning in data and starved for insight. 

No-one feels this pain more deeply than people in the booming domain of space operations.

Rockets blast off from U.S. spaceports that still operate on antiquated, stovepiped 20th-century hardware and software not designed for the digital age – 232 launches are scheduled this year (given no mission delays).

Satellites orbit the earth with data packets crossing space in myriad formats, languages, and even purposes among their users, operators and stakeholders.

So rather than flowing, data drips sluggishly through channels gated by piecemeal infrastructure and security and intellectual-property protocols – or choked by the need to translate it from one use case to the next on a case-by-case basis.

Here in Colorado Springs, we are collaborating with other companies to answer a uniquely complicated data-flow question: Is that space debris or a satellite threat? 

The challenge here is that intelligence data flows in many forms from many sources towards the U.S. Space Force Space Systems Command, which is responsible for safety and national security. There, human operators must filter the real threats out of more than 44,000 other satellites and rocket bodies, and hundreds of thousands of particles of debris orbiting Earth.

So our SDA TAP Lab teams are collaborating on methods of sorting through all that data to help SSC operators decide whether to flag an object: Threat? Non-Threat? Or simply Unknown?

At PSAI, we are seeking to understand how the operators make those decisions today so they can use data from new “events” more effectively.

We believe that by making these data sources interoperable – and understanding the meaning that those decisions give to the data, we can help them take action in the future with with greater clarity, confidence, and speed.

Watch this space.

#spacedata, #sdataplab, #decisionsupport, #ai, #artificialintelligence, #ussf, #satellites, #satellitedefense

A smiling woman, smiling uniformed military officer, and smiling man standing before a series of banners that each say "INNOVATION HUB."
From L: PSAI CEO Cindy Chin, SDA TAP Lab director Maj. Sean Allen, PSAI Head of Product Mack Reed

This is the first in a series of notes from our 3-month residency in Cohort 4 of the SDA TAP Lab’s Project Apollo accelerator:

It’s Day 2 here in Colorado Springs, and we’re already brainstorming at an extraordinary level.

The U.S. Space Force has pulled in PSAI, along with experts in sensor technology, threat assessment, and space-domain awareness, to collaborate on methods of sorting out hostile satellite activity from the myriad commercial satellites, rocket bodies, and chunks of debris cluttering earth orbit.

Landscape near Colorado Springs.

The TAP Lab mission’s 512-day deadline is as short and ambitious as its list of goals is long and challenging. The learning curve feels like a tight, nearly-vertical straight line.

And we could not be in a better place right now to absorb information, forge meaningful partnerships, and make great friends and opportunities as we define where we are best-positioned to pitch in on delivery.

We’ll share more as the project develops; Watch this space.

We are stoked for what we can accomplish tomorrow and beyond. 
#space #orbit #datascience #ussf #sdataplab #accelerator 

“During the three-month TAP Lab cycle, PSAI will further test and refine its solutions for space domain awareness by responding with a team in a given scenario related to threat warning and assessment. “

Via satellite

SatelliteToday.com