All verified mentions of this organization in source documents.
DARPA planned hardware readiness in late 2020 to decide which payloads would fly on Blackjack satellites.
The House Armed Services Committee recommended a $20,000,000 increase above DARPA's $25,000,000 Blackjack request for 2020.
DARPA set a stated goal for Blackjack to deploy 20 satellites by 2022 to demonstrate that low Earth orbit systems can be a more resilient and affordable alternative to geosynchronous military satellites.
DARPA selected 15 vendors to supply satellite buses, payloads, and Pit Boss avionics and computing nodes for the Blackjack program.
DARPA is offering a $2,000,000 prize for completing the first launch of the DARPA Launch Challenge and a $10,000,000 prize for completing the second launch.
DARPA stated that the first launch of the DARPA Launch Challenge is planned for February 2020 with the second launch planned for one month later.
Fred Kennedy said he retired from DARPA on 2019-08-09 and was retired from the military in 2016.
Fred Kennedy formerly directed DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office prior to taking the helm at the Space Development Agency.
The Space Development Agency plans to buy satellite buses directly from commercial vendors or use buses that DARPA is acquiring for the Blackjack program.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency awarded BAE Systems the second phase of an existing $12,800,000 contract to develop digital tools for space command and control.
DARPA estimates about 250 GEO satellites are candidate clients for RSGS services and 80 of those are owned by the U.S. government.
An industry analyst estimated that over the past three years DARPA has invested more than $200,000,000 in the RSGS program.
Initial plans to develop a robotic satellite servicing vehicle were conceived shortly after Tony Tether became DARPA director in 2001.
DARPA recast the program as a commercial venture and renamed it RSGS in 2013.
DARPA invited interested contractors to a briefing in May and solicited new RSGS proposals with proposals due 2019-07-23.
RSGS started in 2016 as a public-private teaming arrangement where DARPA would provide the satellite-servicing robot and a commercial partner would build the satellite and on-orbit servicing vehicle.
Under the previous RSGS effort, DARPA had agreed to arrange the launch through the Air Force in 2021.
Airbus won a contract from DARPA in January for the Blackjack program to examine how commercial smallsat constellations could be used for military applications.
Rocket Lab’s Electron launched DARPA’s R3D2 satellite in March 2019.
Chris Shank, head of the Strategic Capabilities Office, left DoD after a decision to merge the SCO with DARPA.