FAST Labs contracted for Phase 2 of DARPA’s Oversight space-based surveillance programme

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded BAE Systems’ FAST Labs research, development and production organisation a USD 16 million (EUR 13.6 million) Phase 2 contract for the Oversight programme, BAE Systems announced on 10 December 2025.

The Oversight effort is focused on creating an autonomous system that keeps track – or maintains constant ‘custody’ of – a large number of terrestrial assets via new satellite constellations.

The award follows the successful completion of Phase 1 of the programme, which was awarded to FAST Labs in May 2023, during which BAE Systems’ software was integrated into a modelling and simulation environment to demonstrate a custody mission on representative satellite and sensor models. In Phase 2 BAE Systems will mature its solution algorithms and demonstrate operation with increasingly larger constellations, more complex scenarios and higher-fidelity modelling and simulation environments. The technology will also be physically deployed to both tactical-edge satellites and ground stations.

“Future mission requirements are pushing capabilities to the tactical edge,” Dr Ben Cooper, senior principal scientist at FAST Labs, was quoted as saying in a BAE Systems press release. “In space this means operating primarily on board satellites. Through this programme we will help make the space domain more tactically relevant for warfighters.”

The deployment of the software and algorithms developed on the Oversight programme on board proliferated networked satellite constellations enables persistent surveillance within tactical timescales. Space-based co-ordination and data processing delivers lower latency and higher revisit rates, enabling near-real-time tracking. The increased scale, availability and timeliness of information derived from space can thus be used to enhance warfighter situational awareness and speed up decision making.

Work on Phase 2 of the Oversight programme will take place at BAE Systems’ facilities in Burlington, Massachusetts, and Merrimack, New Hampshire, and will include collaboration with subcontractor AIMdyn: a cutting-edge generative artificial intelligence specialist.