The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency within the U.S. Department of Defense, responsible for creating breakthrough technologies for national security. While not a space agency, DARPA initiates and manages high-risk, high-payoff projects relevant to space, including satellite constellations, space-based surveillance tech, lunar habitats, and advanced propulsion systems like nuclear thermal rockets. DARPA partners with various organizations, including NASA, U.S. Space Force, Lockheed Martin, SpaceX, and BAE Systems, to achieve its goals. Keywords associated with DARPA's space activities include space superiority, space-based weaponry, advanced materials, and autonomous systems.
All verified mentions of this organization in source documents.
General Atomics won a $22,000,000 DARPA contract to develop the nuclear reactor for the DRACO demonstration.
DARPA is investing nearly $30,000,000 in a project called Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) to demonstrate a nuclear thermal propulsion system.
Raytheon Intelligence & Space supported the fifth OFFensive Swarm-Enabled Tactics DARPA program field exercise.
The team is contracted by DARPA to demonstrate swarm capabilities during the Army Expeditionary Warrior Experiment 2022.
Research in ARCLab is funded by various sponsors including NASA, DARPA, and the National Science Foundation.
DARPA's goal for Space-BACN is optical communications terminals that can transfer data at speeds of 100 gigabits per second and cost around $100,000 each.
Mynaric was selected on 2021-12-20 to participate in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Space-BACN program to develop next-generation laser communications terminals to connect government and commercial satellites.
DARPA will choose some providers after phase 0 to continue into a 14-month phase to develop a bench-top model of the optical communications terminals.
DARPA plans to launch as many as 12 Blackjack satellites in 2022.
PredaSAR won a $2,000,000 contract from the U.S. Space Force to demonstrate interoperability between its satellites and DARPA’s Blackjack constellation.
DARPA awarded the Parsons contract on 2021-12-10 as a Small Business Innovation Research Phase 3 award for a "Blackjack Prototype Ground Operations Center."
DARPA ordered 10 satellite buses for Blackjack from Blue Canyon Technologies and two buses from Telesat.
DARPA plans to launch as many as 12 Blackjack satellites in 2022 that will carry a mix of payloads for communications, targeting, missile warning, and navigation.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency awarded Parsons a $10,800,000 contract to prototype a ground operations center for the Blackjack constellation.
Sandia National Laboratories developed the MIRAGE tool under DARPA EXTREME and NGA Metalenses programs for large-scale metalens design and optimization using exploited symmetries.
In 2018, DARPA partnered with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s Research Directorate to transition meta-optics concepts to unmanned aerial systems optical systems.
DARPA’s EXTREME program developed optical components, devices, systems, architectures, and design tools using engineered optical materials (metamaterials).
Microchip's participation in the DARPA Toolbox initiative gives qualified DARPA researchers zero-cost access to the company’s Libero® design software suite and associated intellectual property.
Microchip's participation in the DARPA Toolbox initiative allows access to advanced commercial technologies for aerospace and defense challenges.
Microchip Technology Inc. joined the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Toolbox initiative.