Lockheed Martin Corp. announced a $5.8 million contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency on Monday, in which the company will integrate 20 military communications satellites in low Earth orbit. Photo courtesy of DARPA
April 27 (UPI) -- Lockheed Martin Corp. will integrate satellites for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in a $5.8 million contract, the company announced.
The contract covers the first phase of integration of Project Blackjack, which will deploy a constellation of 20 small satellites to demonstrate that a low Earth orbit system can provide global high-speed communications. DARPA's Blackjack program will develop a global network in low Earth orbit providing the Department of Defense with highly connected and autonomous coverage, employing multiple payload types and missions.
The satellites are expected to be launched by 2022, the first group of hundreds of planned communications satellites.
"Lockheed Martin will define and manage interfaces between Blackjack's bus, payload and Pit Boss, its autonomous, space-based command and data processor," the company said in a statement Monday.
The contract was awarded Friday. Pit Boss, developed in 2019, will process data collected in space and properly disseminate it without human involvement.
DARPA's work on the project serves the Space Development Agency, which has said it intends to construct its own constellation of satellites to perform tasks with include hypersonic weapons tracking and beyond-line-of-sight tracking.
"Lockheed Martin has built and integrated a variety of payload types and sizes for every type of mission and we bring all of that experience to the Blackjack program," said Sarah Reeves of Lockheed Martin's Missile Defense Programs. "This is an exciting new approach to plug-n-play design for LEO and we are up for the challenge."
