Enabling a New Paradigm for Flexible, Point of Need Design and Manufacturing

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The Department of Defense (DOD) needs the flexibility to manufacture critical structures at the time and point of need using locally available materials. Yet current manufacturing approaches for forward production operate under the assumption that pristine raw materials will be readily available; furthermore, any change in material input would require costly redesign. This means that structure designs are reliant on fixed inputs to produce fixed outputs, hindering the flexibility required for forward production where raw materials and resources are limited.

DARPA’s new Rubble to Rockets (R²) program aims to overcome current limitations to manufacturing in supply chain-denied environments by developing production and design approaches that can accommodate widely variable input materials. Performers will focus on creating an inexpensive, flexible, and robust platform for the production and characterization of raw material for use in structural fabrication. They will then seek to apply that platform to adaptively update a sounding rocket’s structural design.

“Existing manufacturing approaches require stability. Building a framework that can enable the manufacture of structures out of anything, anywhere, and at many sizes would break the status quo for manufacturing in resource-contested environments,” said Hunter Martin, DARPA’s program manager for the R² program. “We’re focusing on sounding rockets for proof of concept because they represent a single-use structure with multiple components and complex structural requirements, but anticipate broad applicability to a wide range of manufacturing use cases – from spare parts and infrastructure repair to system production.”

R2 will also look to leverage material informatics and innovative processing and manufacturing techniques to dramatically drive down the timeframes and scale needed for production.

DARPA hypothesizes that the analytical framework R2 aims to develop would allow for rapid upgrades to incorporate the growing number of new material developments and fabrication methods, thus significantly reducing adoption risk that traditionally can take decades to retire. Additionally, advances in material conversion and learnings from the program may open entirely new spaces for highly available material with a lower-risk supply chain and energy footprint.

DARPA will share further details on R² in a forthcoming Program Solicitation (PS). An R² Industry Day is scheduled for Mar. 18, 2024, to provide information to potential proposers on the objectives of the program.