NextNav Inc (NASDAQ:NN) shares are trading higher in Monday's after-hours session after the company was awarded a U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) contract.

What Happened: After the market close on Monday, NextNav announced it won a new award from DOT to conduct real-world field tests of its 3D PNT technologies. NextNav will provide PNT (positioning, navigation and timing) information to meet infrastructure needs when GPS service is unavailable.

The award comes from the DOT Volpe Center and is a part of the agency's complementary PNT Action Plan to help "facilitate adoption into systems that depend on secure and reliable PNT services." NextNav's 3D PNT technology is a terrestrial solution that delivers PNT as a complement and backup to GPS.

"As NextNav continues to develop technology solutions to address national security, economic, and public safety needs, we are pleased to engage with the U.S. DOT on the mission-critical work of testing our complementary PNT services," said Mariam Sorond, CEO of NextNav.

"We realize the importance of a terrestrial PNT complement and backup to support our nation's critical infrastructure, and we look forward to working with the U.S. DOT to demonstrate our PNT capabilities."

NextNav noted that it's currently petitioning the Federal Communications Commission to reconfigure the lower 900 MHz spectrum band to optimize its use for a terrestrial complement and backup to GPS, as well as additional spectrum for 5G broadband.

NN Price Action: NextNav shares closed Monday down 1.19% at $8.33. The stock climbed to $9 in after-hours trading before pulling back. NextNav shares were up 2.04% after hours at $8.50 at the time of publication, according to Benzinga Pro.