Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
<body> (DARPA, ARPA) An agency of the US Department of Defense
responsible for the development of new technology for use by the military. DARPA
was established in 1958 in response to the Soviet launching of Sputnik, with the
mission of keeping the US's military technology ahead of its enemies. DARPA is
independent from other more conventional military R&D and reports directly to
senior DoD management. DARPA has around 240 personnel (about 140 technical)
directly managing a $2 billion budget. These figures are "on average" since
DARPA focusses on short (two to four-year) projects run by small, purpose-built
teams.
ARPA was its original name, then it was renamed DARPA (for Defense) in 1972,
then back to ARPA [When?], and then, incredibly, back to DARPA again on
1996-03-11!
ARPA was responsible for funding development of ARPANET (which grew into the
Internet), as well as the Berkeley version of Unix and TCP/IP.
Home.
History.
(1999-07-17)
Nearby terms:
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