The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is the primary research and development center for the Department of the Air Force, playing a key role in developing warfighting technologies for air, space, and cyberspace. As an integrated lab, AFRL supports both the Air Force and the Space Force, providing solutions ranging from satellites and rocket fuel to advanced materials and manufacturing processes. AFRL partners with organizations like NASA, other government agencies, academia, and industry to conduct research, develop technologies, and test new concepts for space-based capabilities, including space weather observation and data transport. Key areas of focus include space vehicles, rocket propulsion, directed energy, and advanced materials for aerospace systems.
All verified mentions of this organization in source documents.
NASA chose the Orbital Test Bed to host the Deep Space Atomic Clock and an Air Force Research Laboratory modular solar array payload under a separate program.
Blue Canyon Technologies is designing and manufacturing two small satellites destined for geostationary orbit under Air Force Research Laboratory contracts.
Blue Canyon Technologies developed XACT, a compact attitude control system, in 2010 under an Air Force Research Laboratory Small Business Innovative Research contract.
One of the Air Force Research Laboratory contracts with Blue Canyon Technologies is for a 60-kilogram space situational awareness microsatellite bus to demonstrate monitoring of geostationary orbit with a small satellite constellation.
Northrop Grumman developed ESPASat, a geostationary satellite bus designed to fly from the ESPAStar platform, based on the AFRL Automated Navigation and Guidance Experiment for Local Space (ANGELS) program launched in 2014.
In April (year unspecified in source), the Air Force Research Laboratory launched the ESPA Augmented Geosynchronous Satellite known as Eagle on a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket.
Pawlikowski has spent eight of the past ten years in the Air Force overseeing space programs as vice commander of the Space and Missile Systems Center, and in senior roles at the National Reconnaissance Office and the Air Force Research Laboratory.