WASHINGTON — LeoLabs won a $20.68 million contract from the U.S. Space Force to deliver a modified version of its transportable Scout radar and demonstrate the technology for a defense mission beyond its traditional use tracking satellites and debris in orbit.
The prototype Other Transaction Agreement, announced Aug. 26, calls for LeoLabs to provide a Scout system for a new defense mission. The company said it could not disclose the specific program or test activity the radar would support.
A prototype Other Transaction Agreement, or OTA, is a contracting mechanism the Pentagon uses to develop and test new technologies outside the traditional procurement process.
The award builds on smaller government-backed development efforts that helped LeoLabs move Scout from an experimental radar architecture toward military applications. These research projects funded software work aimed at detecting and tracking foreign launches, as well as tracking highly maneuverable objects including missiles and hypersonic glide vehicles.
The larger prototype agreement reflects a broader change in LeoLabs’ business. Founded in 2016, the California company spent much of its first decade building and operating ground-based radars and selling the resulting orbital data, analytics and services. It is now moving further into defense hardware, looking to sell radar systems and related sensing technology directly to U.S. and allied government customers.
