Slingshot Aerospace has won a contract worth almost $70 million with the U.S. Space Force, a contract the company is calling the largest in its history. The contract will see Slingshot Aerospace deliver AI-powered mission rehearsal and operational training capabilities to Space Force Guardians. Slingshot Aerospace announced the contract award, July 15.
The $69.2 million award, issued as a SBIR Phase III contract, builds on a previous Strategic Funding Increase (STRATFI) contract, which supported development of a digital space twin of the space operating environment.
Slingshot’s program is called Mentat, named after the human strategists in Dune. Mentat combines live orbital data, astrodynamics, AI-driven analytics, and mission context into a unified environment. At the center of Mentat is Talos, Slingshot’s AI-powered operational training and strategy agent. TALOS models realistic spacecraft behaviors, generates strategic response options, processes vast amounts of complex data, and supports mission rehearsal across continuously evolving space scenarios.
Slingshot explained that Mentat will provide Space Force Guardians with AI-enabled training and mission rehearsal capabilities in “high-fidelity, AI-enabled environments where they can rehearse protect-and-defend scenarios, evaluate courses of action, and sharpen decision-making under realistic operational conditions.”
“Talos gives Guardians the ability to train against realistic orbital scenarios and rehearse complex missions with a level of speed, scale, and accessibility that simply hasn’t existed before. Mentat represents a major advancement in operational space readiness, putting AI-enabled mission rehearsal directly into the environments where Guardians prepare for and execute their missions,” Tim Solms, CEO, Slingshot Aerospace, said in a statement.
