Aalyria’s Spacetime platform. Photo: Aalyria

NASA awarded Aalyria and Intuitive Machines contracts to perform studies to advance space communication capabilities. 

Aalyria received a contract to demonstrate its Spacetime network management software for the NASA Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) network. The award announced this week is worth $393,004 and was awarded under NASA’s NextSTEP-2 program. 

Aalyria aims to show how Spacetime can autonomously manage real-time interconnections across multiple networks for NASA — including task steerable antennas and laser communications terminals, adapt network topologies, and integrate real-time environmental and operational data. 

“NASA’s goals for the future SCaN program require orchestrating dynamic interconnections between NASA mission spacecraft and their government and commercial service providers,” said Brian Barritt, CTO of Aalyria. “Spacetime is designed to facilitate that orchestration, creating adaptive, real-time connectivity across different platforms and constellations.” 

NASA awarded intuitive Machines $647,600 to conduct studies and demonstrations for a dual-purpose navigation and communication lunar surface user terminal. The terminal will support lunar surface exploration planning and ensure interoperability with future LunaNet compatible service providers. 

This award for Intuitive Machines comes after the company was selected for a contract worth up to $4.82 billion to deploy a lunar satellite constellation to provide communication and navigation services for NASA’s Artemis activities on the Moon.