On May 29, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
posted a solicitation for Blackjack satellite integration. Abstracts are due by
4:00 p.m. Eastern on June 11. Questions are due by 2:00 p.m. Eastern on June
14. Proposals are due by 2:00 p.m. Eastern on July 26.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is
soliciting innovative proposals for Blackjack Satellite Integration. Under the
Blackjack program, DARPA is contemplating a broad range of commercial satellite
buses and military payloads and desires an approach that supports pairing any
of the Blackjack commodity buses with any Blackjack payload, as late as
possible in the design process. Information on representative buses, payloads,
and Pit Boss is available in the addendum. Proposed research should investigate
innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in the rapid
integration of Department of Defense (DoD) payloads with commodity satellite
buses. Specifically excluded would be any research that results in evolutionary
improvements to the existing state of practice of small quantities of
high-value spacecraft.
DARPA expects the Blackjack architecture to be extensible,
easily integrating multiple types of commoditized satellite buses with a wide
range of militarily relevant payloads supporting a variety of potential
missions (e.g., detection, characterization, and tracking of advanced missile
threats; alternate, high-accuracy positioning, navigation, and timing; and
spacebased surface moving target indication). Each pairing of a specific bus
and one or more payloads (e.g., an infrared camera and its host satellite) will
define a node in a particular functional constellation layer (see functional
layer definition in Program Lexicon). Incorporating different pairings of a bus
and one or more payloads, other functional layers may be rapidly deployed and
integrated without modifying the architecture. DARPA envisions increasing the
number of satellites in a given functional layer from a demonstration level
(e.g., 20 nodes, sufficient to provide extended coverage over a geographic
region for several hours) to a fully-capable constellation of hundreds of nodes
providing constant custody of points of interest worldwide. Finally, Blackjack
will leverage open architecture standards and system controls permitting easy
insertion of third-party software and hardware elements, including space-based
payloads and hosted applications, communications equipment, and surface-based
user devices and software. Satellite Integration performers will be expected to
provide the flexibility to enable iterative development of Blackjack elements
by all developers.
The Blackjack demonstration program will investigate the incorporation of multiple functional layers and payload phenomenologies into a unified data collection and distribution architecture. These layers are expected to include overhead persistent infrared (OPIR) sensors, Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) payloads for Global Positioning System (GPS) augmentation, radio frequency (RF) and optical communications, including direct connectivity with tactical users from low earth orbit (LEO), multiple tactical intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance payloads, and all-weather, multi-domain asset geolocation, identification, characterization, and tracking.
Full information is available here.
Source: FedBizOpps
By Loren Blinde
May 30, 2019
