MilkyWayEconomy, a company focused on the $500B dollar and growing Space Economy with offices in Washington, DC, Maine, Texas, and Florida, is proud to announce that it has signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement limited purpose Cooperative Research And Development Agreement (CRADA-NDA) with the Air Force Research Lab’s (AFRL) Space Vehicle Directorate, Spacecraft Division on behalf of the U.S. Space Force’s SpaceWERX Office. While CRADAs do not include funding, they allow the Department of Defense (DoD) to share technologies and information with a company more efficiently.

SpaceWERX is the recently launched space arm of AFWERX. Like AFWERX, the aim is to use Small Business Innovation Research awards, and Small Business Technology Transfers to draw new entrepreneurial partners from industry, with a focus on startups. SpaceWERX, headquartered in Los Angeles and with a significant presence in Albuquerque, blends commercial innovation with the needs of Space Force warfighters through investment in technologies emerging from private industry, academia, and the government. SpaceWERX forms partnerships between the military’s space operators and top problem solvers in these three sectors.

“We’ve been engaging with SpaceWERX for over a year now and were honored to be part of the Hyperspace Challenge Hyperdrive Space Summit, but with this CRADA-NDA in place, we’re looking forward to formally working together to explore and solve the tough questions in space business risk, space industry financing, and the space economy,” said Samson Williams, Senior Partner and Co-Founder of MilkyWayEconomy.

“The Air Force Research Lab in New Mexico is excited to enable this agreement between SpaceWERX and MilkyWayEconomy, cementing access to their space economy analysis and thought leadership and forming a collaboration between our two groups,’’ said Gabe Mounce, Director of the AFRL’s Tech Engagement Office in New Mexico.

MilkyWayEconomy is in the business of providing education and research into the economic, geopolitical and commercial market conditions and trends to identify risks, gaps, and opportunities to enable space entrepreneurs and space-faring countries to proactively take the initiative to be leaders in the Fifth Industrial Revolution that is the Space Economy. In addition, MilkWayEconomy invests in and serves as strategic advisor to series A and early-stage companies and new spacepreneurs focused on the Space, Cislunar, and Deep Tech solutions government agencies and commercial entities will need to be competitive in the 21st Century.

The initial focus of the CRADA-NDA will be to increase understanding of how Venture Capital (VC) investment decisions and business models may work for future United States Space Force (USSF) applications. Then examine the USSF-industry-business relationship model to enhance future methods for investments into the VC ecosystem. This analysis will enable the USSF to work more effectively with new and emerging companies in the technology sector that can support space initiatives by demonstrating new relationships and involvement with this ecosystem of commercial space activities and other innovation efforts within the USSF and, in the future, other areas of DoD.

MilkyWayEconomy’s Chief Economist and Co-Founder George S. Pullen, retired Marine, explained, “This CRADA-NDA with the Air Force Research Labs’ SpaceWERX is immensely important to accelerating the investments into startups and the private sector who provide the cutting edge technologies and engineering breakthroughs so crucial to Space Force’s long term resiliency and competitiveness. MilkyWayEconomy is very proud to be of service to the U.S. Space Force and its core mission in global space operations that enhance the way our joint and coalition forces fight and project spacepower.”

For more information about MilkyWayEconomy, they can be reached at official@milkywayeconomy.com or visit www.milkywayeconomy.com

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