Pittsburgh-based Gecko Robotics has landed a contract with the United States Air Force.
The 18-month, $1.5 million contract will see Gecko’s infrastructure-scaling inspection robots deployed at the Air Force’s Intercontinental Ballistic Missile launch facilities.
“Ensuring the safety and efficiency of our nation’s most critical assets is in our DNA at Gecko and we look forward to our partnership with the Air Force in this vital mission,” Jake Loosararian, CEO and co-founder of Gecko Robotics, said in a release. “I’m also proud of how our team and our product have risen to the challenge during this competitive process as we continue to increase our partnerships across the federal space.”
The contract was awarded via the Small Business Innovation Research program, and the Air Force said that it is a part of its efforts to modernize the legs of the U.S. nuclear triad. Through the contract, Gecko’s robots will be integrated with concrete evaluation technology so that they can assess the concrete and steel liners at the launch facilities. The Air Force said that assessing the current launch infrastructure is “paramount” as it looks to transition into its Sentinel launch facility modernization program.
Gecko was awarded the Phase 2 SBIR contract following a competitive review process. It has been a transformative year for the Pittsburgh tech company, which also recently landed a partnership with Siemens Energy to deploy its infrastructure inspection robots in Europe, in addition to raising a $73M Series C funding round and moving into a new headquarters in Nova Place earlier this year.
