EraDrive and Northrop Grumman collaborate on AI-enabled autonomy

SAN FRANCISCO – Silicon Valley startup EraDrive is working with Northrop Grumman to enhance spacecraft autonomy with artificial intelligence.

The teaming agreement “focuses on activities aimed at accelerating design, testing, and autonomous operations for spacecraft,” Han Park, Northrop Grumman vice president of AI integration, told SpaceNews by email.

EraDrive, a 2025 spinoff of the Stanford University Space Rendezvous Laboratory, focuses on spacecraft autonomy-as-a-service.  

“Today’s robotic spacecraft, including Northrop Grumman’s Mission Extension Vehicle and upcoming Mission Robotic Vehicle, are among the most sophisticated ever flown, but autonomy remains the bottleneck to operating fleets of them at scale,” EraDrive CEO Sumant Sharma said by email. “Our collaboration with Northrop Grumman is focused on demonstrating AI-enabled rendezvous, proximity operations, and onboard decision-making that can enable missions not feasible today.”

EraDrive is working with Northrop Grumman to integrate AI “in a judicious way into all phases of robotic space missions,” including in-orbit operations and supporting activities on the ground, said Simone D’Amico, EraDrive chief science officer and Stanford University associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics. Over the next year, EraDrive and Northrop Grumman will focus on “AI-enabled pose estimation, safe integration [of AI tools] with a guidance, navigation and control stack, and fleet-wide operationalization of autonomous servicing and inspection capabilities.”

EraDrive is developing compact hardware-software modules that draw information from onboard sensors to bolster satellite autonomy. Customers can also opt to interface with EraDrive’s software and data layer, D’Amico said.

Two Mission Extension Vehicles from Northrop Grumman subsidiary SpaceLogistics are prolonging the life of two Intelsat communications satellites in geostationary orbit. SpaceLogistics’ Mission Robotic Vehicle with robotic arms to perform more advanced operations is scheduled for its first flight later this year.