The Tech7 Company said Monday it won a U.S. small-business research contract to build a software testbed intended to help the Space Development Agency (SDA) assess applications for its satellite architecture.
Tech7 described the award as a Direct to Phase II contract under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, facilitated by SpaceWERX. SpaceWERX says that route allows qualified small businesses to begin at the prototype stage. Tech7’s announcement gave no contract value or completion date.
The planned Proliferated LEO Agile Testbed Environment (PLATE) would be an unclassified platform built on AWS. Tech7 says teams could use it to mature, test and demonstrate applications before possible use in one or more generations, or tranches, of SDA’s space architecture.
SDA’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture uses small satellites for services including military data transport and missile-threat tracking. The agency develops the system in successive tranches, with a goal of delivering new capabilities every two years.
SDA said it had 84 Tranche 1 satellites in orbit after a launch of 21 data transport satellites on Oct. 10. It expects that tranche to begin providing initial warfighting capability in 2027. Those satellites are part of SDA’s wider program; the Tech7 award concerns a proposed software testbed.
Tech7 says information from a growing number of distributed sensors must be processed and combined quickly, while existing pipelines are tailored to particular missions. Tech7 President and CEO Juan Echeverry said PLATE would give the Space Force “a place to safely try new ideas.”
Tech7 has described a system spanning multiple security levels as a possible later Phase III project. SpaceWERX says Phase III work requires funding outside the SBIR program. Tech7 said work on the PLATE prototype is scheduled to begin in October.
