Bluestaq wins $280 million contract for space situational awareness library

WASHINGTON — The General Services Administration awarded Bluestaq a $280 million contract to continue work on the U.S. Space Force’s library of space object data, the company announced March 23.

The Unified Data Library, or UDL, is a cloud-based space situation awareness repository, built to collect and integrate tracking data on space objects from military, intelligence community, commercial and foreign sources. Users can access UDL through a storefront where they are able to purchase various data products. The library is intended to bypass the traditional issue of stovepiped space systems by providing a single portal where users can access the space domain data they need, regardless of the source.

UDL is a joint effort between the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center.

The 3-year-old Colorado Springs-based company began developing UDL in 2018 with a Phase I Small Business Innovation Research Award. In 2019, DoD followed that up with a $37 million phase III contract to continue its efforts and expand UDL with data from various sources. That Advanced Command and Control Enterprise Systems and Software (ACCESS) contract was for one year with two option years.

The $280 million contract announced March 23 is a two-year extension of the ACCESS contract. Under the deal, Bluestaq also will help the Space Force expand its use of the Space Domain Awareness Marketplace, an online platform for interactions between the government and commercial providers.

According to Bluestaq, UDL distributes millions of data products every day to 3,500 individual users in 25 countries.