Tag Archives: DARPA

There's a Gadget Master post about a Moon phase model, a survey indicating AI and automotive revenues, DARPA building out towards a commercial lunar infrastructure, and Raytheon NORSS providing Space Surveillance and Tracking Services Data from LEO...

Gitai, Honeybee Robotics, Northrop Grumman, Redwire Space and SpaceX are among the 14 companies selected by DARPA for sponsored “LunA-10” project involving commercial lunar infrastructure. They have agreed to work together over the course of the seven-month study to design new integrated systems spanning multiple lunar services. These include lunar power; mining and commercial in-situ resource use; communications, navigation, and ...

DARPA has awarded Raytheon a $15m four-year contract to increase the power density of GaN power devices in military radar. “The improved transistors will have 16 times higher output power than traditional Gallium Nitride with no increase in operating temperature,” according to the company. “Thermal management is no longer a limiting factor,” added Raytheon president Colin Whelan. Key to this ...

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is celebrating its in-space satellite servicing robot passing initial tests. All component-level tests have been completed, it reports, on its DARPA’s Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (RSGS) program and the on-orbit demonstration mission is on schedule for launch in 2024. The goal is to help address the growing problem of space debris ...

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is seeking proposals for an in-space demonstration of the use of nuclear thermal rockets. Specifically, DARPA is after proposals for Phases 2 and 3 of its DRACO (Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations) programme, which is for the design, development, fabrication, and assembly of a nuclear thermal rocket engine. The goal is ...

Northrop Grumman has been awarded a DARPA (US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) contract for a low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite payload. It’s part of DARPA’s Blackjack programme. Specifically, a contract for “Phase 2 development” of an advanced, software-defined positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) payload. The contract includes options to build units destined for space flight. Northrop Grumman said its ...

DARPA – the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency – has chosen General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) to lead the design of a novel Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) system that will allow a rocket to operate in cislunar space. This is the region outside of Earth’s atmosphere to just past the moon’s orbit. Specifically, the agency has awarded a contract ...

DARPA – the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency – has appointed Stefanie Tompkins as its 23rd director. She has previously worked at DARPA for eleven years and was a former military intelligence officer in the U.S. At the end of 2017 she had served as the acting deputy director of the agency. Following this, since February 2018, she has ...

DARPA – the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency – has awarded a $60.4m contract to SEAKR Engineering, for Phase Two and Phase Three of the Blackjack Pit Boss programme. The company – a specialist in electronics for space applications – is based in Centennial, Colorado, which is where the work will be carried out. There is an estimated completion ...

The US’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) is to survey the private sector about developing designs and materials for building large structures on the Moon. The R&D organisation, which operates within the United States Department of Defense, has announced its “Novel Orbital and Moon Manufacturing, Materials and Mass-efficient Design” (NOM4D, pronounced “NOMAD) programme. Highlighting the increasing support by commercial ...