DARPA

DARPA is a U.S. Department of Defense agency that funds high-risk research and development to create advanced military technologies and capabilities.

DARPA program manager: A DARPA official who defines research programs, selects performers, and guides projects toward technical milestones. Program managers shape projects and assemble research teams around ambitious technical goals.
ARPANET: An early packet-switching computer network funded by ARPA, the agency later renamed DARPA. ARPANET demonstrated a network architecture that helped shape the modern internet.
Sputnik crisis: The political and scientific alarm in the United States after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957. The crisis drove the creation of ARPA as a response to perceived technological surprise.
Jack Ruina: An American engineer who directed ARPA from 1961 to 1963. Ruina strengthened the agency's emphasis on ambitious research programs and recruited J. C. R. Licklider.
Office of Naval Research: A U.S. Navy organization that funds and conducts research supporting naval science and technology. Unlike DARPA's cross-service portfolio, the office focuses on the Navy's research needs.
DARPA challenge: A DARPA competition that uses a defined task and prize to spur development of a technology. Challenges let DARPA test whether distributed teams can solve a capability problem quickly.
Global Positioning System: A satellite navigation system that provides positioning, navigation, and timing services worldwide. DARPA research helped establish technologies and concepts later developed into GPS.
Advanced Research Projects Agency: The U.S. defense research agency established in 1958 and later renamed DARPA. ARPA is the agency's original identity and the institutional starting point for DARPA.
J. C. R. Licklider: An American psychologist and computer scientist who developed influential ideas about interactive computing and networked computers. As an ARPA official, Licklider championed interactive computing and helped seed computer-science research.
Defense Innovation Unit: A U.S. Department of Defense organization that helps military services adopt commercial technologies. DIU emphasizes fielding existing commercial solutions, while DARPA usually funds novel research and development.

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