ARLINGTON, Va. – Lockheed Martin Corp. will perform the first phase of satellite integration on Project Blackjack for the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Va. C4ISRnet reports. Continue reading original article
The Military & Aerospace Electronics take:
5 May 2020 -- With Project Blackjack, DARPA researchers seek to demonstrate a constellation of low-Earth orbit satellites for the U.S. military. Blackjack first will consist of 20 satellites to offer lessons learned for a future constellation of hundreds.
Under the $5.8 million contract, Lockheed Martin will define and manage interfaces between the satellite bus, payload and Pit Boss, a system that will be able to process data collected by the satellites in space and disseminate that information to users on Earth without any human input. BAE Systems, SEAKR Engineering Inc. and Scientific Systems Company Inc., were each awarded contracts in 2019 to design the Pit Boss satellite networking.
The DARPA Blackjack program seeks to orbit a constellation of small, secure, and affordable military satellites that capitalize on modern commercial satellite technologies by developing low-cost space payloads and commoditized satellite buses with low size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C) with similar capabilities to today’s military communications that operate at geosynchronous orbit (GEO), but at a fraction of the cost.
John Keller, chief editor
Military & Aerospace Electronics
