Autonomous Space-Based Situational Awareness Software Development for Starling Mission

NASA Ames Research Center (NASA/ARC) requires software development services to support the Starling formation-flying mission. The contractor will be responsible for developing and delivering software upgrades that enable autonomous swarm space situational awareness and control for four 6U CubeSats in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Key capabilities to be developed include resident space object identification and tracking, autonomous orbit determination, swarm geometry maintenance and reconfiguration, onboard conjunction assessment, and multi-satellite autonomous orbit determination utilizing optical sensors.

All software must operate autonomously on-orbit using the CubeSats' existing computational resources. The performance period extends from the date of award through January 20, 2027. NASA/ARC intends to issue a sole-source contract to EraDrive, Inc., as this company holds the proprietary autonomy software currently integrated and operating on the Starling CubeSats. No other source is believed to possess the necessary technical data, codebase, or institutional knowledge to accomplish this work within the available timeframe.

Interested organizations may submit their capabilities and qualifications to perform the effort for consideration; submissions will be evaluated solely to determine whether the acquisition should be made competitively. The Government reserves the discretion to proceed with sole-source procurement if no qualified competitors are identified.