Rhea Space Activity, Inc.

Rhea Space Activity, Inc., a Washington, DC-based small business, develops autonomous systems, space navigation technology, and orbital operations capabilities for defense and space agencies as a prime contractor exclusively under total small business set-asides. The company competes across the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs, with the vast majority of recent awards flowing from Department of Air Force research laboratories and NASA.

The company's capability portfolio centers on GPS-denied navigation systems, autonomous flight and maneuvering platforms, deep reinforcement learning for autonomous control, and planetary hazard detection and mapping. Representative work includes a $3.4 million SBIR Phase II contract from Air Force Research Laboratory for SKY AUGER, a deep-space-derived optical navigation system for reentry vehicles (performance through August 2026); a $2 million SBIR Phase II award from the Army for ANVIL, a handheld GPS-denied self-location application as an Android Tactical Assault Kit plugin for the 1st Special Forces Command (completion October 2026); and a $1.9 million SBIR Phase II contract from Air Force Research Laboratory for space sustainment and orbital maneuver capabilities across all orbital regimes including lunar operations (completion April 2027). The company also holds a $750,000 NASA grant for the Jervis Autonomy Module (JAM) Test Flight project supporting autonomous orbital flight integration and demonstration (completion January 2027).

Customer concentration is heavily skewed toward research and development customers rather than operational procurement. The Air Force Research Laboratory anchors the portfolio at nine awards worth $8.4 million combined potential value, followed distantly by NASA's Shared Services Center (three awards, $900 thousand) and the Army (two awards, $3.3 million). However, the Naval Sea Systems Command IDV position inverts the dollar concentration: Rhea holds a $4 billion Indefinite Delivery Contract under SeaPort-NxG awarded January 2025 with performance through January 2029, though only a single $500 minimum-guarantee task order has been placed to date. The Navy Strategic Systems Programs placed a $240 thousand small business set-aside contract in July 2025.

Across 18 prime awards tracked in the source (100% of recent activity is prime, zero subcontract exposure), Rhea works entirely under total small business set-asides, with twelve awards concentrated in applied research and exploratory development under NAICS 541512 (Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences). Activity has accelerated — two awards in 2022–2023, three in 2024, and six in 2025 — with eight awards (combined potential value $11.4 million) facing ultimate completion inside the next twenty-four months. Eight awards have closed or are completing through 2025, including the STTR Phase I projects STEREOJAM (Army RDECOM, completed February 2025) and DR. LEGS (AFRL, completed July 2025). The company's applied research posture, combined with the large but unactivated SeaPort-NxG IDV ceiling, positions it as a small-business R&D player for defense space technology rather than as a services or sustainment contractor.