Rendering of a BlackSky satellite. Photo: BlackSky

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) awarded BlackSky Technologies a contract worth up to $241 million over five years to create and optimize data sets for use in DoD AI models and applications. The Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) issued the basic order agreement. BlackSky announced the award on Tuesday. 

Details of the contract were light, but Chief Innovation Officer Patrick O’Neil said BlackSky’s platform “brings a strong source of core AI-enabled end-to-end capabilities to the DoD’s mission sets.”

“With demonstrated AI expertise in space-based dynamic monitoring, this agreement will open even more doors for BlackSky to contribute its unique value to the diverse national security challenges faced by the wider DoD community,” O’Neil said. 

This follows after BlackSky received a 10-year Electro-Optical Commercial Layer (EOCL) contract from the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) in May worth up to $1.021 billion.