Outer space

DARPA awards Blackjack contracts to Blue Canyon, SA Photonics

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency announced on June 10 it awarded Blue Canyon Technologies a $14.1 million contract for satellite buses for the Blackjack program. DARPA on June 9 also announced a $16.3 million contract award to SA Photonics for Blackjack payloads.

The Blackjack program is an experiment to show the military utility of low Earth orbit constellations and mesh networks of low-cost satellites.

Both companies already had been selected as part of a pool of Blackjack satellite bus and payload suppliers and had received study contracts. These latest contracts are to produce hardware for the demonstration.

DARPA wants to make plug-and-play satellites where new payloads can be added without having to redesign the bus. That approach would allow the military to speed up the production and lower the cost of satellites compared to traditional acquisitions of custom-built spacecraft.