Maxar: U.S. intelligence re-ups on smaller deal

WESTMINSTER — Maxar Technologies Inc. (NYSE: MAXR) secured a five-year contract worth up to $26.4 million to continue data and intelligence work with an agency of the U.S. Department of Defense.

A three-year grant from Oct. 2018 with the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) was for $92 million via the Small Business Innovation Research program, a press release said then. A release earlier that year had said such work could be for much as 10 years and $920 million.

The grant funded a project to apply machine learning and large-volume data processing to an NGA open-source mapping effort called NOME. It was done under a Maxar unit in Herndon, Virginia, which has since been folded into the parent company.

The new, five-year deal is a separate, formal contract and independent of the SBIR program.

NGA provides geospatial data — locations and their characteristics through time — for decision-makers to “help [them] understand what’s happening … and what may happen next” according to congressional testimony by a former agency director.

NOME users “create and update geospatial features in a crowdsourced ‘living map,’” Maxar’s Thursday release said. Such mapping contributed to COVID pandemic work, according to the press release.

Maxar’s work involves earth — imaging, intelligence, and information — and space: robotics, satellites, and communications. Clients include government, defense, and intelligence agencies.

The company’s shares closed down about 5% to a $2 billion market cap.

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