IARPA COSMIC

IARPA COSMIC

Funds United States investigators developing geospatial AI that blends remote sensing with public geolocation feeds.

COSMIC (Commercial Observation for Spatio-temporal Monitoring for Indications of Change) is a research program run by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), a U.S. government agency operating under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The program funds work under the Emerging Technology Accelerator (ETA) framework — IARPA's compressed-timeline vehicle for bridging emerging commercial technology to intelligence-community application. COSMIC's specific technical aim is to integrate commercial remote sensing data and open-source geolocation information into dynamic geospatial models, then layer an agentic AI analytic system on top to answer intelligence questions automatically. Awards are issued as Prototype Other Transaction Agreements (OTAs) under solicitation DOI-ETA-FY26-30, administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior on behalf of IARPA.

Eligible applicants are U.S.-based prime contractors — companies, universities, nonprofits, and non-traditional defense contractors all qualify. Government agencies, FFRDCs, and UARCs cannot serve as primes. Foreign organizations may participate only as sub-contractors within a U.S.-led team. To qualify for an OTA, teams must meet at least one of three criteria: significant non-traditional contractor participation, small-business or non-traditional exclusivity, or at least one-third non-federal cost-sharing. Classified proposals and facility construction or commercialization costs are not permitted. Award amounts are not pre-specified in the solicitation; the ETA framework typically produces awards ranging from $1 million to $5 million with performance periods of 12–24 months.

The application process is white-paper-first: teams submit a white paper for initial screening, and only invited proposers proceed to a full proposal. The initial white-paper submission deadline was June 30, 2026, with continuous rolling submissions accepted after the Q&A posting period until the program is saturated. Evaluation criteria include technical innovation, feasibility, team capabilities, and IP terms that support government transition. Teams with expertise in satellite imagery processing, geospatial AI, and agentic reasoning systems are well positioned to compete.