Outerspace

DARPA’s big bet on Blackjack

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency foresaw the commercial space boom and recognized an opportunity. Ventures flush with private capital are gearing up to build large constellations of small satellites in low Earth orbit to provide low-latency communications at competitive prices. DARPA was intrigued by what satellite mass production could mean for military space programs.

It was that thinking that drove DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office in 2018 to start Blackjack, an “architecture demonstration” to test the military utility of LEO constellations and mesh networks of low-cost satellites.

Blackjack’s program manager, Paul “Rusty” Thomas, joined DARPA in 2017 after an extensive career running technology and space programs at SpaceX, Orbital Sciences Corp., and Iridium’s original satellite manufacturer Motorola.

In an interview with SpaceNews, Thomas said Blackjack has generated excitement because of its potential to disrupt the traditional approaches for building constellations. Now the pressure is on to deliver on its stated goal: deploy 20 satellites by 2022 to demonstrate that LEO systems can be a more resilient and affordable alternative to the Defense Department’s exquisite and costly geosynchronous satellites.