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 plans to award multiple contracts under the Blackjack program.
Congress directed the Space RCO to collaborate with DARPA on the Blackjack effort.
DARPA ended the SeeMe program in 2015 and agreed to help Raytheon finish production of the first SeeMe satellite and to pay for its launch.
Raytheon won a DARPA contract in 2013 to design and produce SeeMe satellites.
SeeMe originally was a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency project to build a 24-satellite constellation in low Earth orbit to provide imagery directly to soldiers on the ground.
Congress added more than $100,000,000 in funding to Blackjack above DARPA’s original request.
DARPA’s Blackjack program intends to buy small satellites from commercial vendors and equip them with military sensor payloads.
Gwynne Shotwell indicated at DARPA’s D60 conference on 2018-09-06 that SpaceX expected to perform hops of the BFR second stage late next year.
The contract between DARPA and Descartes Labs includes a $4,200,000 option for a second phase.
DARPA plans to test the Geospatial Cloud Analytics program’s utility for predicting regional food shortages, identifying oil fracking sites, and detecting illegal fishing.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency awarded Descartes Labs a $2,900,000 contract to integrate Descartes Labs’ geospatial analytics platform into DARPA’s geospatial cloud.
On 2018-07-26, DARPA awarded BAE Systems Information and Electronic Systems Integration of San Diego a $2,000,000 contract under the Geospatial Cloud Analytics program.
Under the DARPA contract, teams working with DARPA will have access to the Descartes Labs Platform.
Descartes Labs will ingest as many as 75 additional datasets from DARPA partners into its platform to support the Geospatial Cloud Analytics program.
DARPA launched the Geospatial Cloud Analytics program in 2017 to help analysts gain access to and analyze optical, synthetic aperture radar, and radio frequency data.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is developing an experimental constellation of commercial satellite buses in low Earth orbit to serve as platforms for military sensors.
DARPA structured RSGS so that DARPA would provide the robotics package to be integrated with a commercially provided spacecraft bus.
DARPA scheduled SSL to be ready for a systems requirements review for the RSGS spacecraft bus in October 2018.
DARPA created the Blackjack program to develop a satellite constellation in low Earth orbit that offers persistent, global coverage for military operations.
The DARPA Experimental Spaceplane concept calls for performing 10 flights in 10 days at speeds up to Mach 10.