The contract is also for a space training product to be used by four USSF education organisations
Slingshot Aerospace wins contract for its Digital Space Twin product and the Slingshot Laboratory space training product. (Credit: Business Wire)
Slingshot Aerospace has won a contract worth $25.2m from the US Space Force’s (USSF) Space Systems Command for delivering its Digital Space Twin product and deploying the Slingshot Laboratory space training product.
The 39-month contract will see the space simulation and analytics products provider get strategic support from SpaceWERX, the innovation arm of USSF.
Funding for the contract is provided by Space Systems Command and SpaceWERX as part of the Strategic Financing (STRATFI) programme.
SpaceWERX Director Lt. Col. Walter McMillan said: “The intent of the SpaceWERX STRATFI programme is to scale technology development over the ‘valley of death’ by capitalising on the most promising emerging commercial solutions to deliver better capabilities to the warfighter, faster.
“Each year, the STRATFI programme places its ‘big bets’ on the most innovative technologies that meet critical mission gaps. Slingshot’s space education and simulation products have garnered support from across the Space Force operational and acquisition community as we see tremendous value in the technology.”
Slingshot Aerospace’s Digital Space Twin is said to combine mapping of objects in orbit and space weather data in real-time with physics-based simulations. The combination helps users how planned missions will go about in the real space environment.
The contract will fund the expansion of the Digital Space Twin product to cover the USSF missions and improve their ability to analyse and react to present and future threats.
The USSF aims to make use of the Digital Space Twin product for wargaming, mission planning, and design of spacecraft and constellations.
Slingshot Aerospace co-founder and CEO Melanie Stricklan said: “Our Digital Space Twin is an unprecedented leap forward that provides a high-fidelity, physics-driven simulation of the actual, live space environment. This combined with the deployment of Slingshot Laboratory creates an extraordinarily powerful product suite that simply didn’t exist before.”
Slingshot Laboratory is a space simulation platform designed to teach the basics and advanced concepts of astrodynamics to students and professionals. The training product is said to provide an environment that is immersive and collaborative with a physics-driven backdrop enabling the understanding of complex astronautics.
Slingshot Aerospace said that it will create and deploy pilot programmes to four different USSF education organisations, which include Basic Military Training (BMT), National Security Space Institute (NSSI), the 533rd Training Squadron, and the 319th Combat Training Squadron.