WASHINGTON — Wallaroo.AI, a company that helps companies deploy machine learning models, is setting its sights on the military market. The New York-based startup has been selected to participate in the U.S. Space Command's TAP (Tools, Applications, Processing) Lab Accelerator program in Colorado Springs. The accelerator focuses on using commercial technologies for space domain awareness, a capability the U.S. military is seeking to address growing threats in the space domain.
As part of the program's third cohort, Wallaroo will prototype an AI platform to help Space Force teams rapidly operationalize machine learning models using unclassified data.
“Government data scientists don't need to be infrastructure experts or machine learning engineers – they just need to create a model and choose where to deploy it,” Wallaroo's chief operating officer Stephen Spellicy said. Space News.
Automated decision making
Jim Cunningham, Wallaroo's head of DoD business development, explained that the company's role is to “provide the AI infrastructure to enable machine learning to create an automated decision chain, from threat detection to command response.”
“As you start to move models out of prototyping and into production, the scalability and complexity increases as you roll out more models,” Cunningham said, highlighting the key challenge Wallaroo is aiming to solve.
During the program, Wallaroo will focus on object detection, such as identifying unauthorized spacecraft behavior and launch warnings using data like seismic signatures. The company is also looking into deploying AI models directly on the satellites to enable real-time analysis instead of transmitting data to ground stations.
Commercial Data Use
Spelicy noted that the TAP lab's use of unclassified data will provide a valuable “showcase” for companies seeking defense contracts and allow the Space Force to leverage open sources such as commercial satellite imagery to evaluate available technologies.
“AI at the edge is something the Space Force is really interested in,” Cunningham said, noting that lower latency and faster insights are key benefits compared to traditional ground processing.
Wallaroo's software can be uploaded to the satellite from the ground and is being optimized to run on a variety of hardware through ongoing research and development efforts funded by a Space Force Small Business Innovation Research contract.
The TAP Lab cohort, which includes several other commercial technology companies, plans to demonstrate a prototype in late July.
