JPL Scores High in DARPA Virtual Robotics Challenge [Watch], NASA JPL
“The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has selected a group from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., as one of the teams entitled to move forward from the Virtual Robotics Challenge, the first event of the DARPA Robotics Challenge.
… The top teams, including JPL, were entitled to funding and an ATLAS robot from DARPA to compete in the DARPA Robotics Challenge Trials in December 2013 (The agency is also funding several other teams, including JPL, to construct their own robot and compete in the Trials). The Trials are the second of three DARPA Robotics Challenge events, and the first physical competition.”

Marc Boucher is an entrepreneur, writer, editor, podcaster and publisher who has worked in space media for more than 25 years. In 1999 he co-founded SpaceRef with Keith Cowing. The new media company grew into a network that included NASA Watch and The Astrobiology Web. After selling SpaceRef, he joined Multiverse Media, which later merged with SpaceNews. There he helped steer the combined company toward more multimedia, a subscription paywall and intelligence products, and pushed for a mobile app. He is also the founder of SpaceQ Media, Canada’s space news and market intelligence publication.

Marc started his first Internet content business in 1992 and hasn’t looked back. When he’s not working, he loves exploring Canada and the world and expanding his photography skills.

8 replies on “JPL Makes the Cut in DARPA Virtual Robotics Challenge”

  1. Just a question but why is one government agency getting money from another government agency to win a prize intended for the private sector?

    1. Dennis, are you saying that JPL, as a NASA adjunct, is a government agency? I always understood them to be another federally funded contractor used by NASA, just under a more or less permanent basis. JPL was created by the California Institute of Technology and CalTech still manages JPL (under renewable contract), so doesn’t that make the JPL people CalTech employees, not government employees?

      1. It has always depended on which side the bread was buttered whether JPL was a government entity or not….

        To call JPL private sector is a very large stretch…

        1. Agree Dennis. Always amazed that they have free and open access to decision makers at HQ, but hold close their internal design “standards/criteria” with NASA because they are “JPL Proprietary…” Interesting way to play the arrangement. They are a powerhouse to be dealt with however.

    2. JPL is part of CalTech, and an increasing amount of its business comes
      from non-NASA sources. NASA has to approve the non-NASA work (so that
      NASA doesn’t suffer), and there’s the usual “must provide unique
      capabilities and not compete with industry” aspect that has several
      levels of review and approval.

      The relationship between JPL and NASA as an FFRDC is a complex one, and it’s not unusual to find that colleagues at other centers aren’t aware of a lot of the subtleties. For instance, how things like export control and proprietary rights are handled are very different depending on whether you are a civil servant and if you are a non-government employee.

    3. Should not the best technically qualified get the work whether government entity or not? Where does it say it is set aside for private industry? And why should it be?

    4. Of course JSC is also competing, and using $M of dollars worth of FTEs to supplement the little money they are getting from DARPA, something JPL cannot do

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