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The Defense Department’s research arm is set to have a proposer’s day May 3 to discuss a new free-floating satellite project, according to a Thursday post on FedBizOpps.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is holding the event to discuss its System F6 program, which will focus on developing satellites that can be re-configured.
The program would include developing and testing the free-floating orbit clusters, which will include larger satellites that are broken down into smaller modules.
The modules would be built to deliver the same capabilities as a whole satellite upon assembly.
The notice indicated breaking down satellites into smaller, interconnecting modules would lower barriers to enter the national security space industry and create market competition.
The agency wants to award multiple contracts in order to conduct the research program and a six-month demonstration mission in 2015, the notice indicates.
The platform should be able to scatter and re-gather when necessary in order to evade obstacles or maintain safety despite network degradation, according to Nextgov.
DARPA recently conducted test flights of a vehicle that was able to fly up to twenty times the speed of sound for nearly three minutes.
