SEATTLE. Space-based imagery company BlackSky received a $2 million defense contract to provide data to train artificial intelligence (AI) models; the contract was awarded by engineering/test firm Axient on behalf of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).

GERMANTOWN, Md. Hughes Network Systems (an EchoStar company) announced that it won a contract with SES Space & Defense to provide a flexible, software-defined, multi-orbit, auto-PACE [primary, alternate, contingency and emergency] solution and associated modems in support of SES Space & Defense's and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Defense Experimentation Using Commercial Space Internet (DEUCSI) program.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. DornerWorks reports that AFWERX [a directorate within the Air Force Research Laboratory and the innovation arm of the Air Force] granted it a $1.2 million Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award focused on a virtualization solution to address pressing cybersecurity challenges in the Department of the Air Force (DAF).

SUNNYVALE, Calif. Semiconductor memory company GSI Technology was tapped by AFWERX (the innovation arm of the Department of the U.S. Air Force and a directorate within the Air Force Research Laboratory) for a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Direct-to-Phase II contract totaling $1.1 million to demonstrate high-data computation/artificial intelligence (AI) use cases leveraging the in-memory architecture of its next-generation Associative Processing Unit-2 (APU2)

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. Pacific Defense signed at Phase II contract worth $9.4 million with the Space Control Technology Branch of the U.S. Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) to complete development of a low-size, weight, and power (SWaP) sensor built using modular open systems approach (MOSA) principles in an effort to address the rapidly expanding challenge of space situational awareness (SSA) in the cislunar region (the space between the earth and the moon).

BOZEMAN, Mont. Defense-technology company Reveal Technology won a U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant totaling $749,000 for research, development, testing, and evaluation of Reveal's Farsight platform.

LOWELL, Mass. MACOM Technology Solutions has won a contract worth $4 million with the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) to develop advanced semiconductor-process technology related to gallium nitride-on-silicon carbide (GaN-on-SiC)