Military commanders face an enormous challenge in situational awareness and command of control of assets in the space domain, which includes thousands of objects traveling up to 17,000 miles per hour in a domain hundreds of thousands of times larger than the earth. Military commanders need accurate and timely information to protect space assets and react to potential threats.

Current tools were developed when there were fewer objects in space, and fewer nations with assets in the space industry. In the past decade, that situation has changed dramatically with numerous nations developing assets in the space domain, increasing the number of objects to be monitored or assessed as a potential threat.

With our PICASSA tool, Commanders better gain SSA—a difficult challenge when the action is happening thousands of miles above Earth. SSA means understanding indications and warnings of potential threats to the thousands of satellites that are moving at extreme velocities through space.

To enhance SSA, Charles River is building probabilistic models with the Figaro™ open-source probabilistic programming language. Charles River has applied Figaro to other efforts for DARPA, such as developing causal models in DARPA’s Explainable Artificial Intelligence program.

Charles River is also developing another tool under the Hallmark program; the SOLAR effort applies augmented and mixed reality technologies to deliver enhanced space situational awareness.