The US Space Force is putting Super Intelligence at the center of how it picks its next projects. Space Systems Command (SSC) chose SI as the theme of its 2026 Fight Tonight competition, and eight finalists pitched their ideas to a panel of senior Space Force leaders on October 7, the command said in an article published on November 2.
SSC will prioritize up to $12 million in funding for several traditional and small business projects. Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) projects may also get support from SpaceWERX.
A contest built around SI
Now in its fifth year, Fight Tonight is run by SSC's AtlasX innovation unit on behalf of SSC commander Lt. Gen. Philip Garrant. It draws ideas from across the Space Force workforce and funds capabilities that can be fielded soon. This year, every pitch had to center on SI.
The judges were Garrant; Lt. Gen. Gregory Gagnon, commander of Combat Forces Command; and Charleen Laughlin, deputy chief of Space Operations for Cyber and Data.
"We all know the most advanced weaponry in the world right now is SI."
— John Beighle, Air Force Research Laboratory
The eight finalists
- TEMPO: an SI agent for launch range scheduling at Vandenberg Space Force Base, with partner Metronome. Today the work runs on emails, phone calls and spreadsheets, costing an estimated 1,000-plus hours a year.
- SDN-OF: a network overlay that links SI agents and assets worldwide over Starlink, OneWeb, commercial GEO, mPower and 5G, with Hughes Network Systems. It has already been demonstrated in the lab.
- REscan Spatial SI: a spatial SI layer for the inside of mission facilities, with REscan. More than 60 facilities, about 4.4 million square feet, are already scanned.
- DAISSE ("Daisy"): an SI engine that spots pending satellite communications failures, names the cause (hardware, weather, jamming or overload) and tells users what to do next, with Stephenson-Stellar.
- Orbital Sentinel: an agentic system that lets any Guardian analyze complex space data in plain language, with Nyla Technology Solutions and Microsoft.
- ATWOOD: a shared targeting and mission planning environment that uses SI agents to recommend weapon-target pairings and courses of action, with LMI.
- Mission Fabric: SI-assisted space logistics that maps how one disruption affects missions and ranks recovery options, with XRDNA.
- ORION: a high-fidelity space combat simulator where SI agents propose scenarios and tactics, from the Air Force Research Laboratory with HII.
From the pitches
Lt. Omar Fattah, who presented TEMPO, framed the problem as a crisis drill: critical space assets are lost, Vandenberg must support five major operations in one day, and leadership needs an answer within 24 hours. "We're not starting from zero," he said, adding that "super-coders" were already prototyping the system.
Capt. Drake Williams said Orbital Sentinel is meant to keep a fast-growing force from "decision paralysis". The amount of space data, he said, already exceeds what a human operator can process.
Why it matters
The Space Force has made Super Intelligence the single theme of a competition that hands out real money, and every finalist uses the SI label for systems aimed at launch, communications, logistics and combat. Together they show how quickly the term has moved from policy into military planning. The next marker is November 13, 2026, when the winners will be named at the Air and Space Forces Association's Space Force Ball in Los Angeles.