An example of Maxar’s 3D terrain. Photo: Maxar Technologies

Maxar Technologies on Monday said it has been awarded a new contract under the U.S. Army’s One World Terrain (OWT) effort to continue to evolve and add geospatial data for virtual models of the Earth.

The Phase 3b contract is for one year and is worth tens of millions of dollars. Maxar has been the prime contractor on the OWT effort since 2019 through its acquisition of the former Vricon.

The OWT is a component of the Army’s Synthetic Training Environment (STE), which the service says “brings together live, virtual and constructive training environments into a single STE” for all of its personnel.

“The evolution of OWT shows how 3D terrain and information services are becoming essential tools for planning and decision-making not just for the U.S. Army but for a wide range of military, civil and commercial institutions,” Tony Frazier, executive vice president and general manager, Public Sector Earth Intelligence at Maxar, said in a statement.

Under the Phase 3b award, Maxar will continue layering in new geospatial data on top of the 3D foundation of OWT that includes open-source, imagery from small unmanned aircraft systems, existing Army terrain datasets, and others. The company will also ensure the data is geo-registered for accuracy across the different datasets and the real world.

In Phase 3a, which Maxar worked on in 2022, the company improved the 3D terrain dataset fidelity and refined the automation processes to generate realistic terrain derived from Maxar’s satellite imagery for high-fidelity modeling and simulation systems, and for terrain data export capability for operational mission command information systems.

This article was first published by Via Satellite sister publication Defense Daily.