Blackjack & DARPA: How Twenty-One and Casinos Inspired Name for Low Earth Orbit Satellites Use in the U.S. Military
It’s no secret that blackjack is one of the most potent games in the gambling spectrum. The uniquely low house edge, in conjunction with proven playing strategy, enables intelligent, prudent, knowledgeable, and analytical players to lose less and even get some big wins at casinos. The history is rampant with examples of successful attempts, from Ed Thorp up to Don Johnson and the MIT card counting team.
It’s an uphill battle, though. Ever since the horsemen of apocalypse created a definitive guide to optimal blackjack strategy — which rocked the foundations of the gambling industry, hence the dystopian name for inventors — casinos have been coming up with new game mechanisms to even the advantages keel back to their favor.
This history game of cat and mouse, if you will, is well documented.
Nowadays, it spans into the interactive domain of online casinos and live dealer blackjack, not to mention myriad technology advances in land-based casinos to deter patrons from using illegal methods to win.
But…
…what happens when such surroundings inspire the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the United States Department of Defense to christen the program that explores the possibility of utilizing low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites for military use?
Well, we don’t know what will happen. Gambling and military are quite similar when it comes to the future: in both endeavors, the outcome depends on knowledge, training, responsibility, and luck. But, courtesy of public information, we do know that such a Blackjack Program exists and that one of its components is even named Pit Boss.
So, what is it about?
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Three Types of Satellites and Orbits
Other than the funny notion that the government would consider the name of twenty-one outside of gambling, Blackjack Program, launched in 2018, is about the potential utilization of commercial satellites’ mass production in military space programs.
The name came from “a member of the front office staff for [DARPA’s] Tactical Technology Office [that] compared proliferated LEO to the way surveillance domes in a casino ceiling create a mesh network to alert the casino managers to bad actors and provide constant deterrence,” as Paul Thomas, Blackjack’s project manager described in his interview with SpaceNews last month.
Of course, the concept of using satellites for military applications, as well for civilian ones, is old enough.
Today…
…a number of communication services we utilize rely on satellites positioned in geosynchronous or geostationary high Earth orbits, some 22,236 miles above the ground.
The difference between these two is in the inclination.
Geosynchronous satellite orbits at the same speed as Earth and remains synchronized with the rotation of our planet. Every 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4.09 seconds this satellite will rotate into the same spot in its axis. They can orbit at any inclination, which makes them particularly useful for telecommunications, mapping services, aerial photos, financial services, soil observations (spills, habitat suitability), search-and-rescue operations, navigation, and such.
Those satellites are the shiny spots we see from the ground, resembling stars in of their fixed position, except they’re not: They rotate as the Earth does.
Geostationary satellites, on the other hand, have all characteristics of geosynchronous ones, but they exclusively orbit above the Equator. They have a constant view of one area, which makes them of great use for weather forecasting, meteorology research, severe storm tracking, and search-and-rescue beacons.
For instance, the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) — which gives us breathtaking photos of our planet — operated by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric istration is one of these satellites.
Then, there are GPS satellites that reside in medium Earth orbit — some 12,551 miles above the ground — which gives them a possibility to rotate around the planet in 12 hours, which is to say come above the same point twice a day. These are the ones we use for GPS, for instance.
Now…
…other than highly beneficial features, all of these satellites are very expensive to launch and maintain. They require highly specialized resources, which explain why only a few countries in the world can afford them.
Hence the satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO). They rotate around the Earth up to 1,200 miles above the ground — some even lower — with an orbital period ranging between 84 and 127 minutes. Their inclination depends on what they monitor, and among many things, these satellites are the ones that give us the internet.
With the advent of the privatization of the satellite industry, LEO satellites are on the verge of a massive boom in 2020.
The House Edge of Satellite Business
To put numbers into perspective, there are currently no more than 2,200 satellites in all three orbits. But, once the likes of SpaceX, Amazon, Northrop Grumman, OneWeb (the United Kingdom operator), and no less than a couple of dozens of others start launching their own devices, the numbers could go high as tens of thousands satellites in LEO.
(As BBC estimates, only the SpaceX volume could exceed 12,000 by the mid-2020s.)
That’s where the Blackjack Program comes in.
It aims to build upon low-latency satellite devices at competitive prices. The idea is to explore a “more affordable alternative to the Defense Department’s exquisite and costly geosynchronous satellites.”
In other words, to use the existing private production lines to empower military applications.
To do so, DARPA has fifteen vendors working together to supply transportation devices, payloads, and other necessary components for servicing military s. The suppliers’ list includes Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, and Airbus, to name a few. When we say payloads, we mean communications, missile defense, positioning, navigation, timing, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance.
Naturally, the U.S. Air Force, the Army, and the Space Development Agency are partnering with Blackjack Program. DARPA requested $25 million from the House Armed Services Committee to fund this activity in 2020; the Congress recommended a $20 million more, in an almost unprecedentedly enthusiastic move.
One of the essential segments of the Blackjack puzzle is Pit Boss, “an avionics box and computing node mounted on each Blackjack satellite that provides mission level autonomy.”
As Paul Thomas — career executive with stints at SpaceX, Orbital Sciences Corp., and Motorola (manufacturer of original Iridium satellites) — explains, he created Pit Boss as “the autonomous control element in Blackjack, as it plays a similar role to a pit boss in a casino by exerting command and control over a given zone.”
The role of Pit Boss in the Blackjack satellite is to transfer vast processing power to low orbiting space and allow s to deliver critical information in short timelines, a quite a fundamental requirement in military use. Essentially, Pit Boss is a data processor at the heart of the Blackjack Program.
At this stage of the program, DARPA’s goal is to launch 20 satellites in LEO by 2022 as a proof-of-concept. With that demonstration milestone under the belt, all other aspects of the program will be addressed accordingly.
Blackjack Constellations
It appears that what we have here is a bit of history resemblance, if not repeating. Just as patrons flocked to Las Vegas in the early 1960s driven by chance to win some at by utilizing the blackjack strategy, loads of companies are lining up to have a piece of this low orbiting financial pie.
Other than potential military usage, the vast majority of satellites will enable high-speed internet from space. They will potentially replace land-based distribution channels and increase accessibility, rendering world areas without internet obsolete.
In return, it will mean that more people online and, probably, even more players indulging in online casinos around the world.
Hopefully, all actors in this game will approach it just as any aspiring blackjack player does with twenty-one — in a responsible, analytically measured, intelligent, and prudent manner, knowing all too well that no cheating in this game is possible anymore.
One way or the other, the fact that blackjack, Pitt Boss, and casinos have somehow found their way into the official language of DARPA is telling. If for no other reason, then for simple acceptance of the gambling industry as a legitimate segment of our global society.
To that end, and this goes for all twenty-one applications — this really sounds weird; imagine a U.S. Congressman prominently using the word blackjack on the Capitol Hill floor — hit wisely, stand tall, fold to live another day, bet accordingly with your budget, and have good luck.
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