NASA Selects PiLogic for Six-Month Spacecraft Diagnostics Feasibility Study

NASA selected PiLogic Inc. for a six-month Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I effort announced August 25, 2026. The feasibility study will assess Manifest, PiLogic’s diagnostic system, for identifying and reasoning about faults across spacecraft electrical power, thermal-management, and attitude-control systems. The evaluation is ongoing and is expected to run for roughly six months from the announcement. NASA has not disclosed the award value or contract number, so the selection provides no public indication of the effort’s dollar scale or specific contract terms.

The planned assessment is notable for its cross-subsystem scope. Rather than focusing only on a fault within one spacecraft component, NASA is evaluating whether the technology can detect and reason across several interconnected systems. That creates a concrete early-stage signal for companies working in spacecraft health monitoring, autonomy, systems engineering, and mission-support software: NASA is assessing diagnostics that could help operators interpret failures across complex spacecraft architectures. However, a Phase I feasibility effort tests a concept; it does not establish that NASA will adopt Manifest, deploy it on a mission, or issue a follow-on contract.

PiLogic describes Manifest as an explainable, probabilistic diagnostic system. Company CEO Johannes Waldstein said: “Our technology gives engineers a system that reasons through failures the way a human expert would, with a clear account of its own confidence, which is exactly what NASA needs as missions get more autonomous and what the commercial satellite industry needs as constellations get too large to monitor by hand.” The emphasis on reasoning and communicating confidence is relevant to missions where engineers need more than an alert: they need information that can help them assess a diagnosis and decide what to do next. The source reports the company’s characterization, while the NASA effort is intended to assess feasibility rather than confirm operational performance.

The selection may also matter to commercial satellite operators and prospective integration partners. As satellite fleets grow, automated fault detection could help address monitoring demands, but successful use would depend on system performance, integration with spacecraft data and operational workflows, and validation in relevant test environments. PiLogic’s separate research agreement for placing its technology on satellite testing platforms was also reported earlier in 2026; the terms of that agreement were not provided. That activity represents an additional reported testing avenue, not evidence that NASA’s Phase I work has advanced to deployment. For contractors, the practical near-term opportunity is to track the feasibility results and watch for any subsequent development, integration, or testing requirements; no follow-on procurement has been specified.

• Customer: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) selected PiLogic for an SBIR Phase I feasibility effort.
• Announcement date and duration: Announced August 25, 2026, the study is ongoing and expected to run for roughly six months from the announcement.
• Technology under evaluation: PiLogic’s Manifest system for spacecraft fault detection and diagnostic reasoning.
• Subsystem scope: The assessment covers electrical power, thermal management, and attitude control, including cross-subsystem fault detection.
• Procurement details: NASA has not disclosed the award value or contract number.
• Acquisition significance: The effort indicates interest in explainable, probabilistic spacecraft diagnostics, but a Phase I selection is not a deployment decision or guarantee of follow-on work.
• Potential ecosystem relevance: Space technology firms and satellite operators may monitor for future development, integration, or testing activity if the feasibility work advances; no such procurement is currently specified.
• Additional testing context: PiLogic’s separate research agreement for placing its technology on satellite testing platforms was reported earlier in 2026, but its terms were not provided.
• Company perspective: CEO Johannes Waldstein linked the technology’s reasoning and confidence explanations to increasingly autonomous missions and commercial constellations that are difficult to monitor manually.
• Other agency listed in the source: The Air Force Research Laboratory is named in the provided agency data, but the source description does not specify a role for it in NASA’s selection.