All verified mentions of this organization in source documents.
As part of the DARPA Launch Challenge, the three companies will first attempt to launch payloads into orbit in January or February 2020.
Each of the three qualifying companies received $400,000 from DARPA.
The Space Development Agency was stood up on 2019-03-12 and is led by former DARPA official Fred Kennedy.
Rocket Lab successfully launched the Radio Frequency Risk Reduction Deployment Demonstration (R3D2) satellite for DARPA on 2019-03-28.
Rocket Lab launched an experimental satellite for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency on 2019-03-28.
Under the 2017 agreement DARPA, working with the Naval Research Laboratory, would provide the satellite servicing payload and Maxar would integrate that payload on one of its satellite buses.
Maxar’s Space Systems Loral business unit had been working with DARPA on the RSGS program under a public-private partnership finalized in 2017.
DARPA’s request for information sought information on spacecraft buses with GEO heritage that could carry the RSGS payload, mission operations for servicing government and commercial satellites, and business models for the RSGS mission.
DARPA issued a request for information on 2019-02-06 seeking input on potential alternative ways of flying the RSGS mission.
Nuvotronics developed PolyStrata, a patented microfabrication process created with the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency that enables lower-cost production of radio frequency components.
Maxar terminated its agreement with DARPA on the Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (RSGS) program on 2019-01-30.
Fred Kennedy led a joint DARPA–NASA project called Orbital Express in 2007 that demonstrated semi-autonomous satellite servicing by transferring fuel and a new battery to another spacecraft.
Fred Kennedy has led DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office since September 2017 after being promoted from deputy director.
Fred Kennedy worked at DARPA from 2005 to 2008 as a program manager during his earlier tenure at the agency.
SSL is using an approach for hosting S5 on Nusantara Satu that was honed during a DARPA experiment that carried a smallsat aboard Hispasat-30W-6.
SSL deployed a previously unpublicized DARPA smallsat from Hispasat 30W-6 using the PODS system in the prior year.
The Beresheet lander and the Air Force Research Laboratory smallsat are riding onboard Nusantara Satu and will separate from the satellite using techniques SSL developed as part of DARPA’s Payload Orbital Delivery System experiment.
Maxar cited the need to concentrate capital on WorldView Legion when it cancelled a satellite-servicing spacecraft it was co-developing with DARPA.
The Space Rapid Capabilities Office’s projects include small satellites and collaboration with DARPA’s Blackjack program to deploy a proliferated constellation in low Earth orbit and demonstrate a mesh network.
DARPA planned to provide a free launch for RSGS, originally set for 2021, and to provide the robotic payload.