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.
DARPA’s objective for Blackjack is to achieve economies of scale by developing a pipeline of spacecraft synchronized with the Telesat spacecraft production line to lower spacecraft bus costs.
Airbus and OneWeb together are building 900 small telecommunications satellites and received a DARPA study contract for the same commercial-bus assessment purpose.
Airbus Defence and Space received a $2,900,000 study contract from DARPA for Blackjack.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency awarded Telesat a contract to study the use of commercial buses in the Blackjack experimental low-Earth-orbit constellation program.
DARPA canceled the F6 smallsat program in 2013 after investing close to $200,000,000.
The earlier DARPA contract awarded to Telesat on 2018-11-16 is for four months.
Virgin Orbit, Vector, and Firefly Aerospace are participating in or pursuing opportunities in the DARPA Launch Challenge, which requires competitors to launch two payloads on short notice from two different launch sites.
Blackjack is an experimental low Earth orbit constellation managed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency with increasing involvement from the Space and Missile Systems Center.
The DARPA Launch Challenge is scheduled to take place in late 2019.
Teams that successfully complete the DARPA Launch Challenge qualification phase will each receive $400,000.
The DARPA Launch Challenge requires companies to perform two launches from two separate sites weeks apart with the specific launch site and payload for each launch provided on short notice.
The DARPA Launch Challenge qualification phase requires teams to submit a formal application to DARPA by the end of November and to accept an FAA launch license application no later than 2018-02-01.
Teams that complete the first launch in the DARPA Launch Challenge will each receive $2,000,000.
DARPA selected locations from Alaska to Florida on 2018-11-06 to serve as potential launch sites for the DARPA Launch Challenge.
DARPA plans to buy commercial satellite buses from manufacturers such as SpaceX or OneWeb for Blackjack.
DARPA will acquire 20 satellites from one of the broadband-constellation manufacturers when those commercial broadband constellations begin deploying over the next two years.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency awarded Blue Canyon Technologies a $1,540,000 contract on 2018-10-12 to define bus and payload requirements for Blackjack.
DARPA’s 2018-05-25 Broad Agency Announcement specifies that each Blackjack spacecraft’s combined bus, payload, and launch should cost less than $6,000,000.
With funding from DARPA and the Air Force, the Blackjack program will develop and demonstrate technical elements for a global high-speed network platform in low Earth orbit to enable highly networked, resilient, and persistent Department of Defense payloads.
Blackjack is a $117,500,000 DARPA initiative to develop and demonstrate satellites in low Earth orbit with performance comparable to current geostationary systems at a fraction of the cost.