Blue Canyon Technologies (BCT) has been awarded a Phase 3
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) contract to develop an additional six satellites for the Blackjack program. The company announced the award on Wednesday. A BCT spokesperson told
Via Satellite this contract is worth $26.5 million.
Blackjack is a DARPA program to leverage commercial Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) broadband technology for a global high-speed network for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) that can incorporate short design cycles and frequent technology upgrades.
This latest contract follows after BCT and DARPA completed the bus’s Critical Design Review in late 2020. BCT is currently building the first four satellites to be delivered by the close of 2021, under a $14.1 million contract won in July 2020. That contract came with a potential value of $99.4 million, and this additional $26.5 million contract is part of that award.
DARPA Blackjack Satellites. Photo: DARPA
Blue Canyon Technologies (BCT) has completed its Critical Design Review (CDR) validating its X-SAT Saturn-class bus design to support the Blackjack Program, the company announced Dec. 14. Blackjack is a
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program to leverage commercial Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) technology for a global high-speed network for the
U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).
In the CDR, which took place over a two-day period at its satellite constellation factory in Lafayette, Colorado, BCT demonstrated its X-SAT Saturn-class bus design, validating the design and capabilities of the system in support of the Blackjack program. The Saturn bus is the largest microsatellite bus that BCT offers.