Agility Prime
Agility Prime is the Air Force’s transformative vertical lift program that is partnering with the electric vertical takeoff and land (eVTOL) commercial industry to propel the third revolution in aerospace and start to field a new class of air mobility systems by 2023.
Mission: Expand technology transition paths to accelerate emerging dual-use transformative vertical lift markets by leveraging government resources for rapid and affordable fielding.
What: Coalescence of three key technology areas
- Electric: Large distributed electric or hybrid-electric propulsion systems
- Autonomy: Increasing automation and Simplified Vehicle Operations
- Manufacturing: Advanced manufacturing and materials
Why: U.S. Technological Leadership and Accelerating eVTOL fielding
- Strategic: Access to zero emission and runway independent aircraft
- Process: Establish new technology transition paths with contracts, certification, and budgeting
- Product: Field operationally relevant air mobility in 2023 from over 60 potential use cases
How: Collaborative Risk Reduction
- Technical: Opportunities for collaborative test and evaluation
- Regulatory: Early military airworthiness review, NASA, and FAA partnerships
- Financial: Contracts for testing and early use cases
Structure: Diverse partnerships
- Academia: Support research institutions by accelerating technologies through Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs
- Industry: Foster industrial base relationships and capabilities
- Investor: Build relationships across the investment ecosystem through AFVentures
- Interagency: Enable increased collaboration with the FAA and NASA
- State and Local: Identify and partner with initial operations markets
- International: Identify potential markets and coalition partners
- Acquisition: Identify future program office partnerships and technology transition pathways
- Laboratory: Support technology development and demonstration
- Warfighter: Inform future capability planning, near-term use cases, and collaboration across the DoD
Resources
Join the Air Race
Innovative Capabilities Opening (ICO)
- The Air Race overarching legal document which provides a framework for Agility Prime to write OTP (Other Transactional Authority for Prototype) contracts at a rapid pace to suit the development timeline and structure of potential partners.
- 3 stages of ICO contracting structure:
- Submission to the request for information (RFI)
- Site visit to industry (Company Engagement)
- Request for prototype proposal
Please look at both ICO and Area of Interest (AOI) contracting documents for proposal submission guidance. More information can be found here
Phase 1) Request For Information (RFI) - Solution Briefs
The solution brief offers a platform for those developing enabling or related technologies to showcase their product to Agility Prime. A submission contains a short presentation on your technology as well as an excel sheet of specifications, if applicable. The Agility Prime team evaluates the solution against the AOI individually. Please note that an solution brief submission is not a direct application for any opportunity in and of itself.
Phase 2) Company Engagement
Submissions that satisfy an Area of Interest will be evaluated and if satisfactory, an engagement session with the Agility Prime team occurs, if required.
Phase 3) Request For Prototype Proposal
If the brief and/or site visit satisfies the AOI, the Agility Prime team invites the company to submit a written proposal for potential award of a contract.
Areas Of Interest (AOI)
- Areas of Interest (AOI)
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- Focused topic or capability categories of interest to Agility Prime
- AOI 1 (Personnel movement):
- Payload: 3-8 personnel
- Range: Greater than 100 miles
- Speed: Greater than 100 mph
- Endurance: Greater than 60 minutes
- AOI 2 (1-2 Person/Cargo equivalent):
- Payload: 1-2 persons (equivalent)
- Range: Greater than 10 miles
- Speed: Greater than 45 mph
- Endurance: Greater than 15 minutes
- AOI 3 (Cargo aircraft, occupied or not occupied):
- MTOGW: Greater than 1,320 lb
- Payload: Greater than 500 lb
- Range: Greater than 200 miles
- Speed: Greater than 100 mph
- Endurance: Greater than 100 minutes
