The Department of War has awarded Istari Federal, operating as Istari Digital, a prototype other transaction agreement to build the Mission Engineering Automation Testbed, or MEAT, which seeks to enhance how mission engineering insights are produced and used to support joint force operations.
The National Security Technology Accelerator said Tuesday the OTA is expected to have a potential value of up to $50 million, including possible follow-on phases for logistical support and expanded system integration.
The agreement was issued through the Naval Surface Warfare Center’s Crane Division under the Strategic & Spectrum Missions Advanced Resilient Trusted Systems OTA, known as S2MARTS, a contracting vehicle managed by NSTXL that supports rapid prototyping and technology development.3
Recent developments in defense innovation, such as new efforts to modernize mission engineering capabilities, highlight the evolving priorities shaping the naval and broader defense landscape. These trends provide important context for conversations across government and industry. Save your seat and join the discussion at the 2026 Navy Summit on Aug. 27.
“Mission engineering is essential to understanding how systems perform together in real operational contexts, but today it remains too manual, fragmented, and slow to keep pace with evolving threats,” said Tony Kestranek, vice president of S2MARTS, NSTXL. “MEAT is designed to change that by providing an automated, interoperable ecosystem that enables faster, mission-level insight—before decisions are locked in.”
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What Is the DOW MEAT Initiative?
MEAT is a DOW effort that seeks to accelerate the adoption of mission engineering across the defense enterprise by automating and integrating workflows used in research, development, evaluation, testing, acquisition and operational planning.
The initiative aims to establish a secure, scalable testbed that supports mission engineering activities across live, virtual and constructive environments while advancing digital engineering practices. Through MEAT, the department seeks to create a reusable, open-architecture environment that can rapidly incorporate new tools and capabilities to support continuous modernization.
The effort is supported by several DOW agencies, including the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering, the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, the Navy Modeling and Simulation Office, Program Executive Office Integrated Warfare Systems, the Office of Naval Research and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
A request for solutions for the MEAT initiative was issued in October.
What Are the Phase One Objectives of the MEAT OTA Award?
Under phase one, the company will build prototypes that incorporate advanced modeling, simulation and analytics into LVC environments. The effort aims to enable mission engineering tools to operate more seamlessly together while supporting multilevel security architectures and cross-domain data sharing across different operational environments.
What Does Istari Digital Do?
Istari Digital develops digital infrastructure that connects engineering data, models and simulations to support collaboration and system development across aerospace and defense programs. The company was founded by Will Roper, former Air Force acquisition chief and a three-time Wash100 awardee.
Its initiatives include the Flyer One program, which aims to demonstrate a digitally certified aircraft. In 2024, the company won an AFWERX contract to provide modeling and simulation services for the Model One program.
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