The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has selected three industry teams to develop software architectures as part of the initial phase of a monitoring program. The products are designed to help military planners survey up to 1,000 targets of interest in space in support of tactical missions.
Apogee Research, BAE Systems’ information and electronics systems integration business and Systems & Technology Research will work under Phase 1 of DARPA’s Oversight program, the agency said Thursday.
“Through this program, DARPA aims to extend the applicability of U.S. space assets and make the space domain more tactically relevant for warfighters,” said Lael Rudd, Oversight program manager at DARPA’s tactical technology office.
The program’s first phase will run for 15 months with an option period of another three months to support further development and will focus on defining resource management needs, tracking requirements and interface between technology platforms in development.
Rudd noted that DARPA is working with service branches to facilitate early transitions during the program’s first phase.
“We want to get initial products out as fast as possible and that will help cultivate the development needs in Oversight Phase 2, during which we plan to have applications running on hardware resources,” Rudd added.
DARPA said it expects Oversight capabilities developed through the second phase to be integrated with in-orbit spacecraft by fiscal year 2026.
