MSBAI wins DoD contract to accelerate OrbitGuard for space situational awareness

MSBAI wins DoD contract to accelerate OrbitGuard for space situational awareness
by Clarence Oxford
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Sep 03, 2025

MSBAI (Microsurgeonbot Inc.) has received a Direct-to-Phase II SBIR contract worth $1.2 million to advance its OrbitGuard hybrid-intelligence system for space domain awareness. The Department of Defense CDAO originated the opportunity, with selection by the Office of the Secretary of Defense and execution by the Air Force Digital Transformation Office. The 18-month effort positions OrbitGuard for operational use as satellite traffic is expected to surpass 17,000 active spacecraft by 2026.

OrbitGuard, integrated with DoD services such as the Unified Data Library and powered by MSBAI's GURU platform, analyzes multi-source orbital data to detect anomalies and maneuvers in near-real time. It combines symbolic rule-based checks, JEPA-derived predictive models, and reinforcement-learning planning to achieve anomaly detection accuracies between 94 and 98 percent across about 15,000 orbiting objects. The system enables rapid transitions from alerts to operator visualization within seconds, ensuring high reliability in contested environments.

"Space operators are overwhelmed by the volume and velocity of orbital activity in a contested domain," said Allan Grosvenor, MSBAI founder and CEO. "OrbitGuard isn't 'just generative AI.' It's a hybrid-intelligence copilot - combining symbolic rules for guaranteed precision, JEPA-based world models for predictive understanding, and multi-agent reinforcement learning for adaptive planning - to compress timelines from detection to decision, empowering Guardians to act with confidence and maintain superiority."

The contract will allow MSBAI to scale OrbitGuard's processing to monitor more than 20,000 resident space objects with two-minute latency and near-perfect uptime. Planned upgrades include Graph-JEPA and Patch Time-Series Transformers for enhanced predictive analytics, along with explainability features such as blackboard logging and symbolic audits to support ATO certification. A secure integration framework will connect Air Force, Army, and Navy systems via standardized data and APIs.

Deliverables include an ATO-ready prototype aligned with NIST SP 800-53 security standards, developed in collaboration with Dr. Faisal Kaleem of Metro State University. The work builds on recent demonstrations, including OrbitGuard's August 2025 integration with KeepTrack at the U.S. Space Systems Command's Apollo Project Demo Day in Colorado Springs, where it showcased autonomous tracking and visualization. A formal kickoff with DoD stakeholders took place September 2, 2025, advancing prospects for defense and commercial deployment in space traffic management.