October 9, 2020 | International, C4ISR, Security
WASHINGTON — Now that the Space Development Agency has selected four contractors to build its first 28 satellites, the organization is looking for a launch provider to ferry them into orbit.
According to a solicitation posted Oct. 6, the agency plans to select one company to provide launch services for all 28 satellites, with the first launch taking place in September 2022.
Those 28 satellites will comprise tranche 0 of SDA's National Defense Space Architecture, a new proliferated constellation providing a whole host of services primarily from low Earth orbit. Among other things, the NDSA is anticipated to provide beyond-line-of-site targeting, hypersonic missile warning and tracking, and a space-based mesh network that will connect all of the services as part of the Pentagon's new Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) approach.
The constellation will ultimately include hundreds of satellites, but SDA isn't putting them all up at once. Rather, the agency has adopted a spiral development approach, where the most mature and ready technology is added to the constellation in two year tranches.
This launch solicitation covers the first tranche, otherwise known as tranche 0. Slated to go into orbit in fall 2022, tranche 0 is what SDA calls its “war fighter immersion tranche.”
“Its goal is to provide the data in a format that the war fighters are used to seeing on tactical timelines that they can be expected to see once we actually become operational,” SDA Director Derek Tournear told C4ISRNET. “The whole purpose of tranche 0 is to allow the war fighters to start to train and develop tactics, techniques and procedures so that they can create operational plans for a battle where they would actually incorporate these data.”
With just 28 satellites, tranche 0 will not provide global, persistent coverage. Instead, it will provide periodic, regional capabilities. Tranche 0 will feature the inaugural satellites in the transport and tracking layers. The 20 transport layer satellites will form the base of a space-based mesh network, passing data from satellites to weapon systems along a high-speed, on-orbit corridor. Tournear has previously stated that the transport layer will serve as the space component of CJADC2, the Pentagon's effort to connect sensors to shooters across domains and services.
The inaugural tracking layer will be made up of eight satellites. The tracking layer will be used to detect and track hypersonic threats, working with the transport layer to pass tracking data and custody from satellite to satellite—collaborating to keep an eye on globe-traversing missiles that can evade current missile warning capabilities.
SDA has selected Lockheed Martin and York Space Systems to each build 10 of the transport layer satellites, while SpaceX and L3 Harris will split the eight tracking layer satellites.
Because the SDA has given vendors flexibility in the designs of their satellites, there is some variety to the weight of the space vehicles being launched into orbit. While all 20 transport layer satellites will weigh approximately 200 kilograms, give or take 20 kilograms, there is a significant difference in the size of the eight tracking layer satellites. One vendor—either SpaceX or L3 Harris—will be contributing four tracking layer space vehicles weighing approximately 1,068 kg each. The other vendor's space vehicles will be significantly lighter at just 249 kg.
In total, SDA is looking to put as much as 10,164 kg of hardware into orbit. The agency wants all 28 satellites delivered to two circular, 950 km near-polar orbits, with the tranche divided evenly into two planes of 14 satellites. The launch provider has until March 31, 2023, to put all payloads on orbit and has discretion as to how many launches it will use to do that. The goal is to have as many satellites up as close to September 2022 as possible.
Proposals are due by Nov. 5 at 4 p.m. EST.
April 27, 2023 | International, Aerospace
Safran Electronics & Defense has also won a contract from Leonardo to develop and supply the high-performance EuroflirTM 610 electro-optical?system, for the Eurodrone.
November 21, 2019 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security
AIR FORCE The Raytheon Co., Tucson, Arizona, has been awarded a $386,000,000 contract modification (P00001) to the previously awarded contract FA8681-18-D-0001 for the total package approach (TPA) to the Paveway Family of Weapons. The contract action provides a TPA for Paveway-specific activities including, but not limited to: studies, production, certification, integration and sustainment. This modification increases the ceiling of the indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract from the previously awarded amount of $110,000,000 to $496,000,000. Work will be performed at Tucson, Arizona; and Air Force test ranges. This modification involves 100% foreign military sales to countries with active cases to acquire Paveway weapon systems or have expressed interest in the Paveway Family of Weapons. The total cumulative face value of the contract is $496,000,000. Foreign Military Sales funds are being used and no funds are being obligated at the time of award. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Direct Attack Branch, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, is the contracting activity. L-3 Communications Vertex Aerospace LLC, Madison, Mississippi, has been awarded a $77,247,414 firm-fixed-price contract for contractor operated and maintained base supply of the Air Education and Training Command fleet of 178 T-1A trainer aircraft. Work will be performed at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas; Laughlin AFB, Texas; Vance AFB, Oklahoma; Columbus AFB, Mississippi, and Pensacola Naval Air Station, Florida, and is expected to be completed by Nov. 30, 2020. This award is the result of a competitive acquisition and three offers were received. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance funds in the amount $15,787,799 are being obligated at the time of award. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma, is the contracting activity (FA8106-18-C-0001). JYG Innovations LLC, Dayton, Ohio (FA8604-20-D-3503); Stellar Innovations & Solutions Inc., Moraine, Ohio (FA8604-20-D-3501); and Indigenous Technologies LLC, Chickasha, Oklahoma (FA8604-20-D-3502), have been awarded a $75,000,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) information technology support services. This contract provides for all personnel, supervision and services necessary to accomplish organizational unique communications and information systems support for AFLCMC Wright Patterson Air Force Base organizations for information technology functions considered to be outside the definition of core services. Work will be performed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, and is expected to be complete by Feb. 28, 2026. This award is the result of a competitive acquisition and 17 offers were received. Fiscal 2020 operations and management and procurement funds in the amount of $215,059 (JYG Innovations LLC); $1,882,637 (Indigenous Technologies LLC); and $1,784,659 (Stellar Innovations and Solutions Inc.), will be obligated at the time of award. The Air Force Life Cycle Management, Information Technology Contracting, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity. ARMY VGW Geospatial JV,* O'Fallon, Illinois, was awarded a $240,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract for professional land survey architect-engineer in support of the Southwestern Division Department of Homeland Security Border Infrastructure Program. Bids were solicited via the internet with 12 received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Nov. 19, 2024. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Little Rock, Arkansas, is the contracting activity (W9126G-20-D-6002). Lockheed Martin Corp., Orlando, Florida, was awarded a $93,000,000 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for a national cyber range that provides the ability to conduct realistic cybersecurity test and evaluation of major Department of Defense (DoD) acquisition programs and the ability to conduct realistic training, certification and mission rehearsal events for the DoD Cyber Mission Force. One bid were solicited with one bid received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Nov. 19, 2021. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Orlando, Florida, is the contracting activity (W900KK-20-D-0001). The Morganti Group Inc., Danbury, Connecticut, was awarded an $88,515,202 firm-fixed-price contract for construction of buildings, utilities, airfield pavements and infrastructure improvements. Bids were solicited via the internet with six received. Work will be performed in Azraq, Jordan, with an estimated completion date of Sept. 15, 2022. Fiscal 2020 military construction, Army funds in the amount of $88,515,202 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Winchester, Virginia, is the contracting activity (W912ER-20-C-0002). Mobley Contractors Inc.,* Morrilton, Arkansas, was awarded a $20,219,318 firm-fixed-price contract for the demolition and construction of the spillway bridge at Eufaula Lake, Oklahoma. Bids were solicited via the internet with two received. Work will be performed in Stigler, Oklahoma, with an estimated completion date of March 31, 2022. Fiscal 2020 operation and maintenance, civil works funds in the amount of $20,219,318 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Tulsa, Oklahoma, is the contracting activity (W912BV-20-C-0003). SAF Inc.,* Akron, Ohio, was awarded an $8,555,145 firm-fixed-price contract for design-build for Town of Martin low income housing redevelopment. Bids were solicited via the internet with three received. Work will be performed in Martin, Kentucky, with an estimated completion date of Feb. 28, 2021. Fiscal 2010 civil construction funds in the amount of $8,555,145 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Huntington, West Virginia, is the contracting activity (W91237-20-F-9999). Threat Tec LLC,* Hampton, Virginia, was awarded an $8,066,481 modification (P00005) to contract W9124E-18-D-0002 for training support services. Bids were solicited via the internet with seven received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Nov. 24, 2020. U.S. Army Mission and Installation Contracting Command, Fort Polk, Louisiana, is the contracting activity. Lockheed Martin Missile & Fire Control, Grand Prairie, Texas, was awarded a $7,083,431 hybrid contract (cost-plus-fixed-fee and firm-fixed-price foreign military sales (Bahrain, Republic of Korea, Finland, Jordan, Singapore and United Arab Emirates)) for logistics services in support of the Precision Fires Rocket and Missile System launchers. One bid was solicited with one bid received. Work will be performed in Grand Prairie, Texas, with an estimated completion date of Nov. 14, 2022. Fiscal 2020 foreign military sales funds in the amount of $7,083,431 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity (W31P4Q-19-C-0088). NAVY Lockheed Martin Corp., Baltimore, Maryland, is awarded an $86,346,780 for an undefinitized contract action, ceiling-priced, indefinite-delivery, firm-fixed price, performance-based logistics requirements contract for the repair, upgrade or replacement of the MK-41 Vertical Launch System. Work will be performed in Ventura, California (65%); various contractor supplier locations throughout the U.S. (23%); and various contractor divisions located in Clearwater, Florida; Baltimore, Maryland; and La Mesa, Mexico (collectively 12% as breakdown cannot be determined at this time). This contract includes a five-year base period with no options. Work is expected to be completed by November 2024. Annual working capital funds (Navy) in the amount of $17,583,191 will be issued for delivery order (N00383-20-F-0WB0) that will be awarded concurrently with the contract and funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. One company was solicited for this sole-source requirement under authority 10 U.S. Code 2304 (c)(1) and Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302-1, with one offer received. Naval Supply Systems Command Weapon Systems Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the contracting activity (N00383-20-D-WB01). Schmidt-Prime Group LLC,* Pensacola, Florida, is awarded a $30,000,000 maximum amount firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity architect-engineering contract for professional architectural and engineering services in the Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) Southeast area of operations (AO). The work to be performed provides for preparation of professional architectural and engineering services for preparation of design-bid-build documents and design-build request for proposals for various project types at Department of Defense (DoD) and non-DoD activities in the NAVFAC Southeast AO. Initial task order is being awarded at $441,467 to provide engineering services to update the installation DD Form 1391 project documentation and prepare the region team final DD Form 1391 for the Advanced Helicopter Training System at Naval Air Station, Whiting Field, Milton, Florida. Work for this task order is expected to be completed by March 2020. All work on this contract will be performed at various Navy and Marine Corps installations in the NAVFAC Southeast AO including, but not limited to, Florida (20%); Georgia (17%); South Carolina (15%); Louisiana (10%); Mississippi (10%); Texas (10%); Andros Island, Bahamas (5%); Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (5%); Tennessee (3%); Alabama (1%); Arkansas (1%); Kansas (1%); Missouri (1%); and Oklahoma (1%), and is expected to be completed by November 2024. Fiscal 2019 military construction (MILCON, Navy) contract funds in the amount of $441,467 are obligated on this award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Future task orders will be primarily funded by operation and maintenance and MILCON, Navy. This contract was competitively procured via the Navy Electronic Commerce Online website with 26 proposals received. NAVFAC Southeast, Jacksonville, Florida, is the contracting activity (N69450-20-D-0002). Progeny Systems Corp., Manassas, Virginia, is awarded a $23,488,366 cost-plus-incentive-fee and cost-plus-fixed-fee contract modification to previously awarded contract N00024-19-C-6267 to exercise and fund options for engineering services and Navy equipment. Work will be performed in Manassas, Virginia (85%); and Charleroi, Pennsylvania (15%), and is expected to be complete by March 2022. Fiscal 2020 other procurement (Navy); fiscal 2019 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy); fiscal 2020 research, development, test and evaluation (Navy); and fiscal 2020 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funding in the amount of $18,921,361 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington Navy Yard, Washington, District of Columbia, is the contracting activity. BAE Systems Technology Solutions & Services Inc., Rockville, Maryland, is awarded a $15,796,385 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract modification (P00038) to a previously awarded and announced contract (N00030-17-C-0001) to provide services for the U.S. and United Kingdom Trident II D5 strategic weapon system programs, U.S. SSGN attack weapon systems, nuclear weapon surety and future concepts. Work will be performed at Rockville, Maryland (70.3%); Washington, District of Columbia (14.33%); Kings Bay, Georgia (5.1%); Silverdale, Washington (2.7 %); Norfolk, Virginia (1.5% ); San Diego, California (1.5%); Alexandria, Virginia (1.1%); Barrow, United Kingdom (1.1%); Ocala, Florida (0.20%); Ball Ground, Georgia (0.20 %); Saint Mary's, Georgia (0.2%); Pittsfield, Massachusetts (0.17%); Montgomery Village, Maryland (0.15%); Thurmont, Maryland (0.15%); Buffalo, New York (0.15%); New Lebanon, New York (0.15%); New Paris, Ohio (0.15%); Downingtown, Pennsylvania (0.15%); Wexford, Pennsylvania (0.15%); Alton, Virginia (0.15%); Springfield, Virginia (0.15%); Vienna, Virginia (0.15%); and Baltimore, Maryland (0.10%), with an expected completion date of September 30, 2020. Fiscal 2020 other procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $5,938,482; and fiscal 2020 research, development, test and evaluation (Navy) funds in the amount of $3,126,542 will be obligated at the time of award. No funds will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was a sole-source acquisition in accordance with 10 U.S. Code 2304(c)(1) and (4). Strategic Systems Programs, Washington, District of Columbia, is the contracting activity (N00030-17-C-0001). The Nutmeg Companies Inc.,* Norwich, Connecticut, is awarded a $15,360,720 firm-fixed-price contract for renovation of Building 2, reactor servicing ship support, located at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. The project provides whole building repair and modernization to Building 2. Exterior envelope repairs and replacement will include, but not be limited to, roofing and flashing systems, trim, window and door repairs, brick and masonry, and the installation of roof and wall insulation. The project includes, but is not limited to, the replacement of any deteriorated heating, ventilation, and air conditioning equipment and controls, the renovation of electrical and plumbing systems and the modernization of automated fire detection/suppression systems installed to achieve code compliance. Interior repairs will include the removal of lead paint and asbestos material hazards currently encapsulated in the walls and ceilings. Partial reconfigurations of existing spaces will include offices, work areas and egress paths in order to improve space utilization, accessibility and life safety. State Historic Preservation Officer consultation will be required for all work associated with the building's character defining features. Work will be performed in Kittery, Maine, and is expected to be completed by February 2021. Fiscal 2020 operation and maintenance, (Navy) contract funds in the amount of $15,360,720 are obligated on this award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured via the Navy Electronic Commerce Online website with five proposals received. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Mid-Atlantic, Norfolk, Virginia, is the contracting activity (N40085-20-C-0032). BAE Systems, Rockville, Maryland, is awarded a $15,245,739 firm-fixed-price contract modification P00006 under a previously awarded contract (N00604-19-C-4001) to exercise option year one for the operation and maintenance of Navy communication, electronic and computer systems. The contract includes a 12-month base period and four one-year option periods. The exercise of this option will bring the estimated value of the contract to $29,146,674, and if all options are exercised, it will bring the total value to $79,707,560. Work will be performed in Oahu, Hawaii (94%); and Geraldton, Australia (6%). Work is expected to be completed by November 2020; if all options are exercised, work will be completed by November 2023. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance (Navy) funds in the amount of $4,019,559 will be obligated at the time of award and funds will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was solicited on a full and open, unrestricted basis with two offers received. Naval Supply Systems Command Fleet Logistics Center Pearl Harbor, Regional Contracting Department, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, is the contracting activity. Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., a Lockheed Martin Co., Stratford, Connecticut, is awarded a $12,136,378 modification (P00032) to a previously awarded fixed-price-incentive-firm, cost-plus-fixed-fee contract (N00019-16-C-0048). This modification provides CH-53K configuration changes required for initial operational test and evaluation for lot 1 low rate initial production aircraft. Work will be performed in Stratford, Connecticut, and is expected to be completed in January 2022. Fiscal 2018 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $12,136,378 will be obligated at time of award, all of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. San Diego Gas & Electric Co., San Diego, California, is awarded a $9,645,185 firm-fixed-price modification under a basic utility service contract for the final design and construction of a natural gas mainline for Cantonment Area 62, Marine Corps Base (MCB) Camp Pendleton. The work to be performed provides for replacing the existing natural gas mainline between Area 52 and Area 62 at MCB Camp Pendleton. A new 6" Polyethylene natural gas transmission mainline, to be installed under Cristianitos Road between South El Camino Real and San Mateo Road, will supply natural gas to the new natural gas master meter assembly. After award of this modification, the total cumulative contract value will be $10,286,614. Work will be performed in Camp Pendleton, California, and is expected to be completed by May 2021. Fiscal 2020 operation and maintenance, (Headquarters Marine Corps) contract funds in the amount of $9,645,185 will be obligated on this award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Southwest, San Diego, California, is the contracting activity (N62473-14-C-0201). DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY Creighton AB Inc., Reidsville, North Carolina, has been awarded a maximum of $7,635,468 firm-fixed-price contract for men's trousers. This was a competitive acquisition with two responses received. This is a one-year base contract with four one-year option periods. Locations of performance are North Carolina and New York, with a Nov. 20, 2020, performance completion date. Using military service is Navy. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2020 through 2021 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (SPE1C1-20-D-1213). Optima Batteries, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has been awarded a maximum $7,576,806 firm-fixed-price contract for storage batteries. This was a sole-source acquisition using justification U.S. Code 2304 (c)(1), as stated in Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302-1. This is a three-year base contract with two one-year option periods. Locations of performance are Wisconsin and Mexico, with a Nov. 19, 2024, performance completion date. Using military services are Air Force, Army and Navy. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2020 through 2023 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Land and Maritime, Columbus, Ohio (SPE7LX-20-D-0043). *Small Business https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Contracts/Contract/Article/2022193/source/GovDelivery/
March 23, 2020 | International, Land
By: Kelsey D. Atherton Picture the scene: A rural compound in northwest Syria. An underground tunnel beneath the compound, where a cornered man with a suicide vest and two children hides from a raid by the U.S. Army's Delta Force. Outside the compound on Oct. 26, waiting and at the ready, was a robot. The vested man was later identified as Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed caliph of the Islamic State of Syria and the Levant. “We had a robot just in case because we were afraid he had a suicide vest and if you get close to him and he blows it up, you're going to die. You're going to die. He had a very powerful suicide vest,” President Donald Trump said in a press conference about the raid in the following days. “The robot was set, too, but we didn't hook it up because we were too — they were moving too fast. We were moving fast,” the president continued. “We weren't 100 percent sure about the tunnel being dead ended. It's possible that there could have been an escape hatch somewhere along that we didn't know about.” In this case, the robot never went in the tunnels. Picture the scene, four months later, in the damp subterranean levels of the never-finished Satsop nuclear power plant outside Elma, Washington. There, engineers and scientists are testing the machines and algorithms that may guide missions for a time, preparing for a time when the robots won't remain on the sidelines. None of the robots fielded at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Subterranean Challenge urban circuit in Elma in February are particularly battle-ready, though a few could likely work in a pinch. Apart from a single human commander able to take remote control, the robots navigate, mostly autonomously. As captured on hours of video, the robots crawled, floated, rolled and stumbled their way through the course. They mapped their environment and searched for up to 20 special artifacts in the special urban circuit courses, built in the underground levels around a never-used cooling tower. The artifacts included cellphones emitting bluetooth, Wi-Fi and occasionally video. They included red backpacks and thermal manikins warmed to the temperature of humans playing an audio recording, and they included carbon dioxide gas and warm blowing vents. This urban circuit is the second of three underground environments that DARPA is using to test robots. Phones, manikins and backpacks are common across the tunnel, urban and cave settings that constitute the full range of subterranean challenges. The straightforward mission of the contest is to create machines that are better at rescue in environments that are dangerous and difficult for first responders, who are humans. If robots can find people trapped underground, then humans can use their energy getting to those same people, rather than expend that energy searching themselves. A subtext of the Subterranean Challenge is that the same technologies that lead robots to rescue people underground could also lead infantry to find enemies hiding in tunnel complexes. While Delta Force was able to corner al-Baghdadi in Syria, much of the military's modern interest in tunnel warfare can be traced back to Osama bin Laden evading capture for years by escaping through the tunnels at Tora Bora. Underground at Satsop, the future of warfare was far less a concern than simply making sure the robots could navigate the courses before them. That meant, most importantly, maintaining contact with the other robots on the team, and with a human supervisor. Thick concrete walls, feet of dirt, heavy cave walls and the metals embedded in the structure all make underground sites that the military describes as passively denied environments, where the greatest obstacle to communication through the electromagnetic spectrum is the terrain itself. It's a problem military leaders, particularly in the Army, are hoping to solve for future iterations of their networks. Team NUS SEDS, the undergrad roboticists representing the National University of Singapore Students for Exploration and Development of Space, arrived in Washington with one of the smallest budgets of any competitor, spending roughly $12,000 on everything from robot parts to travel and lodging. One of their robots, a larger tracked vehicle, was held up by U.S. Customs, and unable to take part in the competition. Not to be deterred, at the team's preparation area, members showed off a version of the most striking design innovation at the competition: droppable Wi-Fi repeaters. As designed, the robots would release a repeater the moment they lost contact with the human operator. To lighten the data load, the onboard computers would compress the data to one-hundredth of its size, and then send it through the repeater. “It's like dropping bread crumbs,” said Ramu Vairavan, the team's president. Unfortunately for NUS SEDS, the bread crumbs were not enough, and the team only found one artifact in its four runs between the two courses. But the bread-crumb concept was shared across various teams. Besides the physical competition taking place underground at Satsop, the urban circuit held a parallel virtual challenge, where teams selected robots and sensors from a defined budget and then programmed algorithms to tackle a challenge fully autonomously. The repeaters, such a popular innovation in the physical space, will likely be programmed into the next round of the virtual challenge. The first DARPA Grand Challenge, launched in 2004, focused on getting roboticists together to provide a technological answer to a military problem. Convoys, needed for sustaining logistics in occupied countries, are vulnerable to attack, and tasking humans to drive the vehicles and escort the cargo only increasing the fixed costs of resupply. What if, instead, the robots could drive themselves over long stretches of desert? After much attention and even more design, the March 2004 challenge ended with no vehicle having gone even a tenth the distance of the 142-mile track. A second Grand Challenge, held 18 months later, delivered far more successful results, and is largely credited with sparking the modern wave of autonomous driving features in cars. Open desert is a permissive space, and navigation across it is aided by existing maps and the ever-present GPS data. This is the same architecture that undergirds much of autonomous navigation today, where surface robots and flying drones can all plug into communication networks offering useful location data. Underground offers a fundamentally unknowable environment. Robots can explore parts of it, but even the most successful team on its most successful run found fewer than half of the artifacts hidden in the space. That team, CoSTAR (an acronym for “Collaborative SubTerranean Autonomous Resilient robots) included participants from Jet Propulsion Laboratory, CalTech, MIT, KAIST in South Korea and Lulea University of Technology in Sweden. CoSTAR used a mixture of wheeled and legged machines, and in the off-hours would practice everywhere from a local high school to a hotel staircase. Yet, for all the constraints on signal that impeded navigation, it was the human-built environment that provided the greatest hurdle. On a tour of the courses, it was easy to see how an environment intuitive to humans is difficult for machines. Backpacks and cellphones were not just placed on corners of roofs, but on internal ledges, impossible to spot without some aerial navigation. Whereas the tunnel course held relatively flat, the urban circuit features levels upon levels to explore. Stairs and shafts, wide-open rooms with the jangly mess of a mezzanine catwalk, all require teams and robots to explore space in three dimensions. Between runs, the humans running the competition would adjust some features, so that completing the course once does not automatically translate into perfect information for a second attempt. “How do we design equally hard for air and ground?” Viktor Orekhov, a DARPA contractor who designed the course, said. “There's an art to it, not a science. But there's also a lot of science.” Part of that art was building ramps into and out of an early room that would otherwise serve as a run-ending chokepoint. Another component was making sure that the course “leveled up” in difficulty the further teams got, requiring more senses and more tools to find artifacts hidden deeper and deeper in the space. “Using all senses is helpful for humans. It's helpful for robots, too,” said Orekhov. Teams competing in the Subterranean Challenge have six months to incorporate lessons learned into their designs and plans. The cave circuit, the next chapter of the Challenge scheduled for August 2020, will inevitably feature greater strain on communications and navigation, and will not even share the at least familiarity of a human-designed spaces seen in the urban circuit. After that, teams will have a year to prepare for the final circuit, set to incorporate aspects of tunnel, urban and cave circuits, and scheduled for August 2021. DARPA prides itself on spurring technological development, rather than iterating it in a final form. Like the Grand Challenges before it, the goal is at least as much to spark industry interest and collaboration in a useful but unexplored space. Programming a quadcopter or a tracked robot to find a manikin in a safety-yellow vest is a distant task from tracking and capturing armed people in the battlefields of the future, but the tools workshopped in late nights at a high school cafeteria between urban circuit runs may lead to the actual sensors on the robots brought along by Delta Force on future raids. The robots of the underground wars of tomorrow are gestating, in competitions and workshops and github pages. Someday, they won't just be brought along on the raid against a military leader. Wordlessly — with spinning LiDAR, whirring engines, and millimeter-wave radar — the robots might lead the charge themselves. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/it-networks/2020/03/20/the-trouble-when-military-robots-go-underground/