Tag: darpa

DARPA’s Defiant Fully Uncrewed Demonstrator Ship Will Hit The Seas Later This Year

Plans to test a new uncrewed surface vessel are making waves, with the company heading the project targeting the end of this year to put its demonstrator in the water. Serco Inc.’s Defiant testbed has been designed from the ground up with the knowledge that there will never be a human onboard while it’s at sea. Conceived as being capable of operating autonomously for months to years with minimal maintenance, the vessel is already being eyed by the Navy as a path to fielding a fleet of missile-laden drone boats in the future.

Defiant is being procured under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) No Manning Required Ship (NOMARS) program, which aims to field a new medium uncrewed surface vessel (MUSV) prototype. The NOMARS program was launched in 2020, and Serco’s involvement in it stretches back to that time.

In 2022, the company was awarded a $68.5 million total-value contract to build, test, and demonstrate its solution as the prime contractor. This is all prior to the start of more rigorous at-sea testing, which a representative for Serco confirmed to The War Zone on the floor of the Navy League’s Sea Air Space symposium this week is scheduled to start in January 2025.

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Manta Ray High-Endurance Underwater Drone Unveiled

Northrop Grumman has completed the construction of its first full-scale Manta Ray uncrewed underwater vehicle, or UUV, prototype. The company is developing the drone under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Manta Ray program, which seeks to demonstrate critical technologies for a new class of very long-endurance payload-capable UUVs. 

The news was announced by Northrop earlier today, along with the release of the first image of its full-size testbed, seen in the feature image of this article. Now that its assembly has been finalized, the next step will be to actually test it, which Northrop has previously said will take place at some stage this year.

While details on the overall dimensions of the prototype have not been made public, Northrop describes it as an “extra-large glider” that draws inspiration from the “graceful glide” of the manta ray. In mimicking the shape and movement of the fish after which it’s named, Northrop’s drone features a lifting body that has sea glider-like properties, but is not a glider in the true sense of the term (i.e., it does not strictly employ variable-buoyancy propulsion alone instead of thrusters or propellers to move it forward).

In the video below, released by Northrop in 2022, we see computer-generated footage of Manta Ray being propelled via four small propellers. Imagery of the full-size testbed released by Northrop today also shows the presence of rear propellers, of which there appear to be two, rather than four.

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Why was mRNA the Government Vaccine of Choice for COVID-19?

John Solomon on Real America’s Voice Just the News asked me why was mRNA chosen over traditional vaccines for the COVID-19 pandemic? My answer goes back many years to the US Department of Defense Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (DARPA) ADEPT PROTECT P3 program which stated in 2012 the US will use mRNA vaccines to end pandemics in 60 days.

Former president Trump and the White House Task Force should have done their homework with a phone calls to DARPA and a few clicks on the internet and told America that mRNA was the plan for many years. It was not developed during the few months of Operation Warp Speed.

mRNA has a scientific “seduction” that lathers up molecular biologists unlike any other product I have ever witnessed with 9,613 patents licensed to giants in biotech and the US government. The National Institutes of Health Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) and DARPA have had a torrid love affair with mRNA for decades. Note how both agencies end with the designation “Authority.” The speed from sequencing a novel virus to production of a mRNA vaccine is breathtaking. However, seduction leads to blunder and that is exactly what happened with the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccine programs.

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DARPA picks Northrop Grumman to develop ‘lunar raiload’ concept

Railroads could open the moon to serious and sustained economic development, as they did in the American West in the late 19th century.

That’s apparently the hope of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is supporting the development of a “lunar railroad” concept proposed by aerospace giant Northrop Grumman.

“The envisioned lunar railroad network could transport humans, supplies and resources for commercial ventures across the lunar surface, contributing to a space economy for the United States and international partners,” Northrop Grumman representatives wrote in a press statement on Tuesday (March 19).

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SECRET PENTAGON PROGRAM ECHOES PEDOPHILE RING IN “TRUE DETECTIVE” SERIES

THE PENTAGON IS pursuing a high-tech program that will “minimize cognitive burden” on soldiers, according to budget documents released last week. The $40 million-plus classified program, codenamed “CARCOSA,” shares the same name as “the temple” in the first season of the HBO TV series “True Detective,” a place where an elite pedophile ring performs ritual abuse on children.

The program is overseen by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, the Pentagon’s premier organization funding the development of futuristic weapons and military capabilities. 

There is of course no evidence that the military’s CARCOSA is involved in anything like that; but it’s unclear why, at a time when the White House has prioritized fighting “dangerous conspiracy theories,” DARPA is providing the conspiracy crowd with such fodder. The Intercept reached out to DARPA to inquire whether the elite research agency was aware of the strange coincidence or whether there’s a “True Detective” fan at the agency. DARPA did not respond at the time of publication.

The Pentagon’s CARCOSA is its own temple of information, an AI-driven aggregator that is intended to acquire, sort, and display the blizzard of information that reflects what is going on on a fast-moving future battlefield. “The Carcosa program is developing and demonstrating cyber technologies for use by warfighters during tactical operations,” DARPA’s new fiscal year 2025 budget request says. “Carcosa cyber technology aims to provide warfighters in the field with enhanced situational awareness of their immediate battlespace.

CARCOSA, DARPA says, will help to “minimize cognitive burden on tactical cyber operators.” In other words, headaches caused by the same information overload we all have to deal with everyday. Individual cyber warriors on high-intensity battlefields such as Ukraine and Israel are inundated with data, from their own communications and IT systems, from a virtual Niagara of intelligence inputs, and from electronic attacks via computers, machines, and drones. On top of it all, the modern battlefield is a venue for “information operations,” which seek to manipulate what the enemy sees and believes.

CARCOSA will support an Army mission area called Cyberspace and Electromagnetic Activities, or CEMA, which provides battlefield commanders “with technical and tactical advice on all aspects of offensive and defensive cyberspace and electronic warfare operations.” The Army says CEMA operators are so inundated with information that they need augmented intelligence technology to help sort the signal from the noise.

CARCOSA stands for Cyber-Augmented Reality and Cyber-Operations Suite for Augmented Intelligence. “Augmented reality” refers to immersive technology that produces computer-generated images overlaying a user’s view of the real world, like Apple’s Vision Pro headset. The program supports development of various technologies, at least according to vague budget documents, all of which seek to defeat a new reality of combat: Individual soldiers and commanders can’t process all of the information that they are bombarded with. 

The full CARCOSA name, which has not been previously reported, appears in a November $26 million DARPA contract to Two Six Labs, a part of Two Six Technologies and owned by the Carlyle Group. Two Six Labs says it supplies “situational awareness interfaces for cyber operators to distributed sensor networks, from machine learning models that learn to reverse engineer malware to embedded devices that enable and protect our nation’s warfighters.” 

“We want to do everything we can to help the US government and the intelligence community,” says Two Six Technologies CEO Joe Logue. “Starting from over here for information operations and influence up through cyber, command control and operations.” In its three years of operations, the Arlington, Virginia, based company has doubled its national security contracts to some $650 million.

“DARPA’s Cyber-Augmented Operations, also known as CAOs, are a vast spectrum of military programs many of which seek to enhance, if not replace, humans with machines,” says Annie Jacobsen, author of “The Pentagon’s Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America’s Top-Secret Military Research Agency.”

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PENTAGON’S BLUE PROGRAM AIMS TO FUEL UNDERWATER REMOTE SENSORS USING MICROSCOPIC MARINE ORGANISMS

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has launched an ambitious effort to harness the power of microscopic marine organisms to power remotely deployed naval sensor platforms. 

The initiative, known as the “BioLogical Undersea Energy” or “BLUE” program, seeks to revolutionize the capabilities of ocean-deployed sensor technologies by developing self-refueling power supplies that run on dissolved organic matter abundantly found throughout the world’s oceans. 

“The BLUE program seeks to develop technologies to continuously provide electrical power that will expand the capabilities of remote, ocean-deployed sensor systems,” reads documents issued to prospective industry partners. “Such systems hold great potential for national security, understanding dynamics of marine environments, and monitoring marine climate change.”

According to a solicitation notice issued last week by DARPA, the BLUE program is driven by the recognition that current battery-powered sensor systems face limitations due to their finite energy capacity and frequent need for recharging or swapping of batteries.

Replacing batteries for some underwater sensors can present significant logistical hurdles and even risks to personnel and equipment. This is particularly evident in scenarios involving covert sensor systems that monitor strategic waters adjacent to a potential foreign adversary.

By exploring alternative energy sources derived from marine biomass, DARPA seeks to overcome these challenges and unlock new remote marine monitoring and surveillance possibilities.

Specifically, the BLUE program will target microscopic forms of marine biomass, including dissolved organic matter, phytoplankton, bacteria, and microscopic zooplankton, as potential electrical power sources. 

Unlike approaches utilizing macroscopic biomass, such as seaweed or kelp, BLUE will focus solely on harnessing energy from the abundant and diverse microorganisms in marine environments. 

“It is our hypothesis that the energy requirements of many ocean-deployed systems can be met by development of an onboard device that converts marine biomass into simple fuels and then converts those fuels into operational power,” Dr. Leonard Tender, BLUE program manager, said in a statement issued by DARPA. 

Using natural processes to convert organic waste into usable energy is hardly a novel idea.

Anaerobic digestion, a process where microorganisms break down biodegradable material without oxygen, is a significant source of renewable energy and biofuel production. The International Energy Agency reports that biofuels currently contribute to over 3.5% of the world’s transport energy, with projections indicating a 150% increase by 2030.

This is also not the first time the Pentagon has tried to recruit marine life to serve out U.S. national security interests. A previous DARPA effort, the “Persistent Aquatic Living Sensors” or “PALS” program, sought to use marine animal behavior as a way of monitoring strategic waters, including tracking adversarial subs. 

Nevertheless, DARPA’s aim to replicate biofuel production within a self-contained underwater system is unprecedented. While innovative, this ambitious endeavor could likely encounter some engineering hurdles, primarily due to the intricacies of operating in remote marine environments.

To meet program requirements, a power supply must sustain at least 0.1 kW average continuous power for over a year while remaining fully submerged. The device should also be compact enough to fit within the specified size and weight constraints of a form factor of less than 180 liters or 440 lbs. 

Crucially, the power supply should be expected to self-refuel on marine biomass, offering a persistent and sustainable energy solution for remote sensor systems in oceanic environments. 

As with most programs run by the Pentagon’s brain trust, DARPA does not elaborate on what times of sensor platforms a new microscopic marine power supply might fuel. However, solicitation documents repeatedly mention the need for systems to operate underwater and be capable of independently providing consistent power for “at least one year.” The microscopic marine organisms fueling the system must also be “sufficiently abundant” in locations identified through sources such as satellite imaging. 

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DARPA’S NEW REMA PROGRAM IS TURNING ORDINARY DRONES INTO AUTONOMOUS KILLING MACHINES. KIND OF.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has selected the contractors for their Rapid Experimental Missionized Autonomy (REMA) program, which will practically turn ordinary commercial and military drones into autonomous killing machines.

By joining a program that was announced less than three months ago, the newly awarded partner companies will create a universal system that can equip existing drones with the capability to act autonomously and finish their mission even when the connection to their human operator has been lost.

“REMA is focused on creating autonomous solutions to maximize effectiveness of stock commercial and small military drones on the battlefield,” said Dr. Lael Rudd, REMA program manager when announcing the new awards. “Through creating an autonomy adapter that works with all commercial drones, regardless of manufacturer, and by developing mission-specific autonomy that is constantly refreshed and easy to upload prior to a mission, we aim to give drone operators the advantage in fast-paced combat operations.”

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DARPA’S MYSTERIOUS X-PLANE WILL REVOLUTIONIZE FLIGHT BY BREAKING THIS CENTURY-OLD AVIATION DESIGN PARADIGM

DARPA is preparing to revolutionize flight as it moves forward with the development of its experimental X-plane, which the agency says will upend a century of flight technology with an aircraft featuring no moving control surfaces.

The X-65, a technology demonstrator with a 30-foot wingspan weighing slightly more than 7000 pounds, is expected to be capable of reaching Mach 0.7.

The agency has been working with its partners at Aurora Flight Sciences, who were recently given the green light to construct a full-scale experimental aircraft that will demonstrate the company’s novel active flow control (AFC) actuators for its flight control system.

Utilizing an innovative design that controls the flow of air over an aircraft’s surface, the recent award granted to Aurora represents the third phase of DARPA’s Control of Revolutionary Aircraft with Novel Effectors (CRANE) program.

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Pentagon Aims to Create a Human-Machine Soldier as Part of Dangerous New Artificial Intelligence Race

“In 1962, J.C.R. Licklider created the US Information Processing Techniques Office at the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). His vision, published two years earlier in his seminal work Man–Computer Symbiosis (Licklider 1960), heralded an ambitious, and ultimately successful, push to develop artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. The Agency, now called DARPA with the D emphasizing its focus on defense applications, has supported AI research, as popularity has ebbed and flowed, over the past 60 years.”[1]

The Pentagon has been at the forefront of researching and developing artificial intelligence technologies for use in warfare and spying since the early 1960s, primarily through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).[2] According to the Brookings Institution, 87% of the value of federal contracts over the five years 2017-2022 that had the term “artificial intelligence” in the contract description were with the Department of Defense.[3] This article reviews the Pentagon’s current application of AI technologies.[4]

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U.S. SPY AGENCY DREAMS OF SURVEILLANCE UNDERWEAR IT’S CALLING “SMART EPANTS”

THE FUTURE OF wearable technology, beyond now-standard accessories like smartwatches and fitness tracking rings, is ePANTS, according to the intelligence community. 

The federal government has shelled out at least $22 million in an effort to develop “smart” clothing that spies on the wearer and its surroundings. Similar to previous moonshot projects funded by military and intelligence agencies, the inspiration may have come from science fiction and superpowers, but the basic applications are on brand for the government: surveillance and data collection.

Billed as the “largest single investment to develop Active Smart Textiles,” the SMART ePANTS — Smart Electrically Powered and Networked Textile Systems — program aims to develop clothing capable of recording audio, video, and geolocation data, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence announced in an August 22 press release. Garments slated for production include shirts, pants, socks, and underwear, all of which are intended to be washable.

The project is being undertaken by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, the intelligence community’s secretive counterpart to the military’s better-known Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. IARPA’s website says it “invests federal funding into high-risk, high reward projects to address challenges facing the intelligence community.” Its tolerance for risk has led to both impressive achievements, like a Nobel Prize awarded to physicist David Wineland for his research on quantum computing funded by IARPA, as well as costly failures.

“A lot of the IARPA and DARPA programs are like throwing spaghetti against the refrigerator,” Annie Jacobsen, author of a book about DARPA, “The Pentagon’s Brain,” told The Intercept. “It may or may not stick.”

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