Benzinga | Aug 19, 2021 06:03AM EDT

Maxar Awarded $26M Contract to Continue Development and Support for NGA's Open Mapping Platform

Maxar Technologies (NYSE:MAXR) (TSX:MAXR), a trusted partner and innovator in Earth Intelligence and Space Infrastructure, today announced it has been awarded a five-year contract worth up to $26.4 million by the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) to sustain and enhance the National System for Geospatial Intelligence Open Mapping Enclave (NOME). Under the agreement, Maxar will continue to provide engineering, software development and geospatial tradecraft in support of NOME.

The web-based NOME platform enables a community of vetted U.S. government users to create and update geospatial features in a crowdsourced "living map." NOME was initially developed to support NGA's foundation mapping mission, but the platform emerged as a powerful tool to perform unclassified mission support remotely throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Increasingly, users also leverage the platform to create features for further dissemination across multiple networks and to train artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) models.

"Maxar is excited to continue building upon the 10 years of development that have gone into NOME," said Tony Frazier, Maxar's Executive Vice President of Global Field Operations. "We look forward to further advancing the platform and its applications, to include NGA mission support, AI/ML initiatives and research."

This award, which builds upon a previous Small Business Innovation Research Phase III program, marks the first time NOME has been funded through a standalone contract.

"NOME is a highly effective mission enabler for the agency's distributed workforce," said James Griffith, Director of Source at NGA. "Looking ahead, we will continue to integrate NOME with NGA's Global Enhanced GEOINT Delivery (G-EGD) program and to leverage opportunities for partnerships and participation across the National System for Geospatial Intelligence."