From SpaceWERX establishing its East Coast campus at UCF to breakthroughs in light-speed networks and live traffic systems, this issue highlights Central Florida’s growing role in advancing space, defense and commercial technologies.
The University of Central Florida and SpaceWERX, the innovation arm of the U.S. Space Force, formalized a partnership to establish SpaceWERX’s East Coast campus in Central Florida, expanding the region’s role in advancing emerging technologies that support national security and space missions. The announcement adds to a growing list of innovation milestones across the region, including Orlando-based Relativity Networks securing $22 million in SAFE financing and a $40 million customer order for its hollow-core fiber technology, Magics Technologies selecting Osceola County for its first U.S. operation, Hernon Manufacturing expanding production in Sanford, OneRail launching a new delivery platform and UCF recruiting a longtime FAA leader to help build its aerospace medicine program.
Together, these developments reflect a technology economy where research, defense, aerospace and advanced industry increasingly intersect. The roots stretch back to the moonshot. Today, that foundation powers innovations in space, healthcare, defense, semiconductors, logistics and immersive experiences, reinforcing Central Florida’s position as a hub for next-generation technologies.
UCF and SpaceWERX Establish East Coast Campus
The University of Central Florida and SpaceWERX marked the establishment of SpaceWERX’s East Coast campus on Sept. 9, expanding the organization’s national innovation network in Central Florida. SpaceWERX, the innovation arm of the U.S. Space Force, connects startups, small businesses and nontraditional innovators with military and defense partners to accelerate emerging technologies that strengthen national security and support space missions.
UCF President Alexander Cartwright and SpaceWERX Director Arthur Grijalva formalized the partnership during a signing ceremony at UCF’s Morgridge International Reading Center. UCF described the initiative as building on the university’s role as “America’s Space University” and its efforts to advance talent, research and technologies that support the nation’s space mission.
Relativity Networks Raises $22 Million to Move Data Faster
The time saved is measured in microseconds. The business opportunity is measured in millions.
Orlando-based Relativity Networks announced $22 million in SAFE financing. The company also reported a $40 million follow-on order from an unnamed hyperscaler. According to Relativity Networks, the customer placed the order after testing the company’s technology between two data centers. Investors included Rhapsody Venture Partners, Bell Ventures and Faster Than Glass.
Relativity Networks develops hollow-core fiber. Conventional optical fiber guides light through solid glass. Relativity Networks’ technology guides light through a hollow core, reducing the time information needs to travel between locations. The difference matters when computing operations spread across multiple buildings but still need to function as one coordinated system. The time saved is small enough to measure in microseconds and meaningful enough to influence how that infrastructure is designed.
The company also reported producing its highest-density hollow-core cable to date through a joint project with Prysmian. The 10-millimeter cable carries 24 fibers. Prysmian produces the fiber in the Netherlands and assembles it into cable in North Carolina, while couplers, fiber characterization and installation training are handled in Orlando.
Founder Jason Eichenholz earned his master’s and doctorate at CREOL, UCF’s College of Optics and Photonics, where he now holds a courtesy faculty appointment. He has spent much of his career at the intersection of optics, sensing and commercialization, previously co-founding lidar company Luminar Technologies. The announcement brings those threads together with three concrete indicators of progress: outside capital, a manufacturing milestone and a customer order following testing.
Sensing & Advanced Hardware
Central Florida’s Hardware Base Adds New Capabilities
Relativity Networks leads the month, but it sits inside a wider regional hardware base that runs from university research and specialized chip design to precision manufacturing and full-rate production. Four developments show how those layers reinforce one another.
Belgium-based Magics Technologies will establish its first U.S. operation in Osceola County, bringing its specialized semiconductor expertise closer to American space, defense and nuclear customers. The fabless company designs radiation-hardened and fault-tolerant microelectronics for systems operating in extreme environments. Its U.S. headquarters will include sales, business development and application engineering, supported by local inventory and technical assistance.
Magics will join the semiconductor network developing around NeoCity, where research, advanced packaging and workforce initiatives are already underway. The decision reflects the strength of a regional ecosystem. The Orlando Economic Partnership, Osceola County, SelectFlorida, SkyWater Technology, UCF, the Florida Semiconductor Engine, Florida High Tech Corridor and Space Florida worked together to connect the company with Central Florida’s infrastructure, talent, research and customers. Magics selected Osceola County because those assets are working together here.
That same reliability requirement shows up one county north. In Sanford, Hernon Manufacturing invested $2.8 million in a 13,000-square-foot facility across from its existing 60,000-square-foot headquarters, adding production capacity for dispensing systems and UV-curing equipment. Hernon has operated in Seminole County since relocating from New York in 1990. Its adhesives, sealants, curing equipment and precision dispensing systems are used across aerospace, medical device, electronics and automotive manufacturing, which places the company in the supply chain for many of the same customers Magics intends to serve.
On the Space Coast, L3Harris reached a production milestone for its F-16 Viper Shield electronic warfare systems, reporting delivery of 35 systems from a planned production run of 233 for eight allied nations. It is the clearest local example of radar, electronic warfare and embedded electronics moving at production scale rather than prototype scale.
And at UCF, CREOL Dean David Hagan was elected vice president of SPIE, adding international visibility for the optics and photonics research that underpins much of the region’s advanced hardware work. That research base connects the whole section back to Relativity Networks. Chip design, precision manufacturing, electronic warfare production and photonics research draw on overlapping talent and serve overlapping markets, which is what turns a list of companies into a hardware economy.
Read more:
- Magics Technologies expands into Osceola County
- Hernon Manufacturing expands operations in Sanford
- L3Harris completes first F-16 Viper Shield production
- CREOL Dean David Hagan elected SPIE vice president
Autonomous & Intelligent Systems
Software Decides, Hardware Delivers
Two Orlando companies spent the month solving versions of the same problem: how to trust a physical network you do not fully control.
OneRail launched OmniSTAR, a delivery decisioning platform built with NVIDIA. For each order it evaluates every available option across owned fleet, courier and parcel, then picks the one that meets the service requirement at the lowest cost. Most retailers fall back on static rules because the combinations pile up faster than conventional systems can process them. OneRail says pairing NVIDIA’s cuOpt engine with its own pricing data turns a 20-minute routing problem into roughly two, and expects the platform to exceed $6 billion in gross merchandise volume in the fourth quarter.
Unusual Machines partnered with Altana to bring AI-driven supply chain intelligence to its NDAA-compliant drone components, validating suppliers and supporting documentation for the Defense Contract Management Agency’s Blue UAS Framework.
One company is deciding which carrier can keep a delivery promise. The other is proving where a component came from. Both are betting that the hard part is no longer moving the thing, it is knowing what to trust.
At UCF, researchers led by Dr. Pegah Khosravi received a $974,680 Florida Cancer Innovation Fund grant to build Kidney-VLM, a platform for detecting and characterizing kidney tumors. It capped a strong month for the Institute of Artificial Intelligence that also included 15 papers accepted at ECCV 2026 and founding director Mubarak Shah being named UCF’s Big 12 Faculty of the Year.
Read more:
- CNBC’s report on OneRail
- Unusual Machines strengthens supply chain intelligence through partnership with Altana
- UCF kidney-tumor research announcement
Synthetic Environments & Experiences
Orlando’s Digital Twins Are Already Running Live Systems
The clearest proof that Central Florida’s simulation expertise has left the training bay is sitting inside a state traffic control room.
A UCF Institute for Simulation & Training team led by Pegasus Professor Mohamed Abdel-Aty developed a crash-prediction system that runs within the Florida Department of Transportation’s Traffic Management Center, using real-time traffic data to flag locations where crashes are likely before they occur. The approach has been adopted as a model in Sweden and the United Arab Emirates.
Two other UCF IST efforts point the same direction. Soheil Sabri, director of the Urban Digital Twin Lab, uses 3D urban modeling to help cities assess flood risk and weigh long-term development decisions. Saumya Gupta is leading a NASA-funded project examining how buildings interfere with radio signals, work aimed at enabling safe navigation for drones and air taxis through dense urban areas. That last project lands close to home, with air taxi infrastructure planning underway across Orange and Osceola counties.
The institute is led by Carolina Cruz-Neira, executive director of the Pegasus Research Institute and interim director of UCF IST. A member of the National Academy of Engineering and the creator of the CAVE virtual environment, she is one of the field’s foundational figures in virtual reality, interactive visualization and digital twins, and her presence is a meaningful part of why this work happens in Orlando.
A digital twin is a live, data-driven virtual model of a physical environment, fed by sensors monitoring traffic, weather and infrastructure. It lets planners test scenarios without disrupting the real system. It is the same discipline Central Florida has practiced on flight simulators for sixty years, pointed at a city instead of a cockpit.
Why that skill transfers so readily was the subject of the National Center for Simulation’s MS&T Connect event at Full Sail University, where speakers described the identical discipline in different settings. Anna Metke of Space Resource Technologies described university teams testing lunar rovers in beach sand because realistic regolith test beds are scarce, where wheels that worked in sand failed within seconds. Universal Creative described testing attraction systems virtually before the physical equipment exists. Full Sail students respond to simulated attacks inside a cyber defense range without putting live networks at risk. Beach sand is excellent for volleyball. Its performance review as a moon substitute is mixed.
A traffic engineer, a ride designer, a cyber analyst and a lunar hardware team are drawing on the same regional bench. That depth was recognized again this month when the National Center for Simulation named Merry “Beth” Pettitt, Robert A. Sottilare and Kay M. Stanney to the 2026 Modeling and Simulation Hall of Fame, honoring work spanning military medical simulation, adaptive tutoring, cognitive workload and digital twins. Induction is Sept. 30 at the Orange County Convention Center.
Read more:
- UCF IST research powers smarter, safer cities through digital twins
- NCS MS&T Connect 2026 highlights simulation’s expanding role across industries
- MS&T Connect 2026 full event video
- NCS names 2026 Modeling & Simulation Hall of Fame recipients
Human Performance
Engineering That Starts With the Body
A former FAA institute director joined UCF to build an aerospace medicine program, and a group of UCF undergraduates turned a lab 3D printer into a relief supply chain for earthquake survivors.
Both efforts start in the same place. Aircraft, networks and ride vehicles can all be redesigned. The person operating them arrives as-is, and Central Florida has spent decades studying what that person needs.
After 34 years at the Federal Aviation Administration, including leadership of its Civil Aerospace Medical Institute, Melchor Antuñano joined UCF as professor, chief technologist and medical innovation officer. He will help build a master’s degree and residency program in aerospace medicine and develop procedures and technologies aimed at improving safety for astronauts, pilots and passengers. His arrival follows the opening of UCF’s Aerospace Medicine Clinic, which handles medical certification exams for astronauts and pilots, and he joins UCF’s Center for Aerospace and Extreme Environments Medicine, which brings together medicine, engineering, computer science, psychology, arts and educational leadership.
The appointment links Lake Nona’s medical community to Central Florida’s aerospace sector and gives the capability a working definition: study how people hold up in demanding environments, then turn that into training, procedures and technology.
Sometimes that same instinct moves faster than any institution could organize it. After two earthquakes struck Venezuela in late June, students in UCF’s Biomedical Engineering Society began printing orthopedic devices for the injured. Their effort, Bracing Venezuela, has shipped more than 350 hand splints, neck braces and other devices to clinicians there.
The engineering is the interesting part. Smaller splints print flat in a few hours, which keeps shipping cheap. Clinicians soften them in hot water and mold them to each patient on arrival. It is custom-fit orthopedics without a custom-fit supply chain. Physicians in Caracas tell the students which devices are most urgently needed, and faculty advisor Mohsen Rakhshan, who holds appointments in electrical and computer engineering and at UCF’s Institute for Simulation & Training, opened his lab’s printer for the work.
The local stake is real. Roughly 127,000 Venezuelans live in the Orlando metro, about 12 percent of the population. The group is still recruiting, supplying filament to volunteers with printers and accepting material donations from those without.
One effort builds a residency program over years. The other moved from a campus lab to a clinic in Caracas in a matter of weeks. Different timescales, same question.
Read more:
- FAA executive physician and scientist joins UCF aerospace medicine team
- UCF engineering students aid Venezuelan earthquake survivors with 3D-printed devices
The Through Line
Orlando’s regional technology economy operates through connected assets. Universities develop research and talent. Companies turn specialized knowledge into products. Public and private partners help firms reach infrastructure, customers and markets. Defense, healthcare, aerospace, logistics, semiconductors and themed entertainment provide demanding environments in which technologies can be tested and applied.
Central Florida’s next chapter depends on turning those shared capabilities into repeatable outcomes: more companies building here, more firms choosing the region to expand, more local manufacturers growing and more research reaching the market.
The economy is easy to underestimate because its best work sits underneath something else. Fiber underneath a data center. Radiation-hardened chips underneath a spacecraft. A crash-prediction model underneath a state traffic system. A routing decision underneath every same-day delivery promise.
The month produced $22 million in new capital, a $40 million customer order, a $2.8 million plant expansion, a $974,680 research grant and a Belgian chipmaker’s first American address. Magics alone required multiple organizations working the same problem.
The next founder, engineer or investor who writes off this region will do it on outdated information. You now have the current version, let’s build.
Opportunity: Funding Orlando’s Technology Ecosystem
The 2026 Orlando Tech Grant is a $65,000 initiative funded by the City of Orlando and managed by the Orlando Economic Partnership. The program supports organizations and community-led initiatives that connect technology talent, entrepreneurs and industry.
Ignite Grants, ranging from $1,500 to $3,000, support grassroots activities such as meetups, mentorship programs, hackathons, networking events and community-led technology initiatives.
Capability Catalyst Grants, ranging from $8,000 to $15,000, support larger ecosystem-building initiatives.
Eligible applicants include nonprofit organizations operating in or serving the City of Orlando, fiscally sponsored projects, mission-aligned for-profit organizations operating ecosystem-building programs and volunteer-led initiatives applying through a qualified fiscal sponsor.
Applications are due September 15, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. ET.
Review Orlando Tech Grant eligibility and application information
