NASA backs AstraQua's aircraft diagnostics AI with $1.27 million grant
What's the deal? NASADealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has awarded Santa Monica-based AstraQuaDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → $1,274,990 in a Phase II contract to develop AstraSense, software that monitors the health of electric and hybrid-electric aircraft propulsion systems. The project focuses on detecting degradation, diagnosing faults, and predicting failures in complex electric propulsion.
How it works: AstraSense runs on AstraQua's self-described "Agentic Physical AI" to give autonomous systems predictive health and operational self-awareness. The goal is to let machines use their own health data to decide whether to continue a task, adapt, or stop.
In the founder's words: "A robot should know when to slow down, not just when it has broken down," said Loay Elbasyouni, founder and chief executive officer of AstraQua. "That's what we mean by teaching robots to feel pain: using their own health to make better, safer decisions in real time."
Why now? The grant builds on an earlier Phase I SBIR project worth roughly $174,000, in which AstraQua demonstrated real-time diagnostics to NASA. Phase II advances aircraft integration and safety-focused verification and validation.
By the numbers: The award sits in the top third of comparable deals by size, ranking around the 34.7th percentile — a modest but above-threshold R&D contract rather than a commercial breakthrough.
What could go wrong? The system is not certified or deployed. Its key test is whether it can be validated for safety-critical use and integrated into actual aircraft.
The signal: Major eVTOL developers such as Joby and Archer are still working through FAA certification, where propulsion reliability and evidence of safety remain central hurdles. Predictive maintenance and onboard fault detection are increasingly studied as ways to improve aircraft reliability, making AstraQua's work a small bet on a problem the whole sector must solve.
Read more: urbanairmobilitynews.com
Image credit: Astraqua
