All verified mentions of this organization in source documents.
The earlier DARPA contract awarded to Telesat on 2018-11-16 is for four months.
DARPA canceled the SeeMe program in 2015 after two years, and only one satellite was completed for that program.
DARPA canceled the F6 smallsat program in 2013 after investing close to $200,000,000.
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.
Telesat received a $2.8 million, 12-month DARPA study contract announced on 2018-11-27 to assess the utility of Telesat buses.
Airbus and OneWeb together are building 900 small telecommunications satellites and received a DARPA study contract for the same commercial-bus assessment purpose.
Telesat received an earlier DARPA contract on 2018-11-16 worth approximately $550,000 to help DARPA better understand commercial commoditized buses and their mechanical, electrical, and network interfaces.
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 aims to pay no more than $6,000,000 per Blackjack satellite, including launch.
Airbus Defence and Space received a $2,900,000 study contract from DARPA for Blackjack.
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 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.
The DARPA Launch Challenge is scheduled to take place in late 2019.
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.
Teams that successfully complete the DARPA Launch Challenge qualification phase will each receive $400,000.
DARPA plans to buy commercial satellite buses from manufacturers such as SpaceX or OneWeb for Blackjack.
Surrey Satellite Technology provides operational lessons in the small-satellite business that DARPA considers relevant to U.S. efforts.
DARPA will acquire 20 satellites from one of the broadband-constellation manufacturers when those commercial broadband constellations begin deploying over the next two years.