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2021-10-01
DARPA Awards Northrop Grumman Contract to Develop PNT Payload
Northrop Grumman Corporation recently won a contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Blackjack programme for Phase 2 development of an advanced, software-defined positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) payload, with options to build units intended for space flight.
The PNT payload work is led by Northrop Grumman’s Future PNT Systems Operating Unit in Woodland Hills, U.S. The team supports the DARPA Tactical Technology Office’s goal of achieving capable, resilient, and affordable national security space capabilities from low Earth orbit (LEO).
“Northrop Grumman’s software-defined Positioning, Navigation and Timing technology will offer military users an agile new signal from LEO that is not dependent on existing satellite navigation systems,” said Dr Nicholas Paraskevopoulos, chief technology officer and sector vice president, emerging capabilities development, Northrop Grumman. “Warfighters depend on assured PNT for traditional missions like force projection and joint operations, but also for emerging autonomous and distributed missions.”
The PNT payload features Northrop Grumman’s Software Enabled Reconfigurable Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Embedded Architecture for Navigation and Timing (SERGEANT) capability. The Phase 2 development effort is valued at US$13.3 million if all options are exercised through emulation, critical design, and build.
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National Security Space (NSS) assets, critical to U.S. warfighting capabilities, traditionally reside in geosynchronous orbit to deliver persistent overhead access to any point on the globe. In the increasingly contested space environment, these costly and monolithic systems have become vulnerable targets that would take years to replace if degraded or destroyed.
DARPA’s Blackjack programme aims to develop and demonstrate the critical elements for a global high-speed network in LEO that provides the U.S. Department of Defense with highly connected and persistent coverage.
Blackjack seeks to incorporate commercial sector advances in LEO, including the design of LEO constellations intended for broadband internet service. The design and manufacturing could offer economies of scale previously unavailable. DARPA is interested in capitalising on these advances to demonstrate military utility, emphasising a commoditised bus and low-cost interchangeable payloads with short design cycles and frequent technology upgrades.
The programme’s key objectives are to develop payload and mission-level autonomy software and demonstrate autonomous orbital operations, including on-orbit distributed decision processors. It also aims to develop and implement advanced commercial manufacturing for military payloads.
Moreover, Blackjack demonstrates payloads in LEO to augment NSS assets. The driver will be to show LEO performance that is on par with current systems in geosynchronous orbit with the spacecraft combined bus, payloads, and launch costs under US$6 million per orbital node while the payloads meet size, weight, and power constraints of the commercial bus.
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