Projects and Missions

Below is a sampling of APL’s critical contributions to critical challenges. Projects and missions are displayed in alphabetical order. 

Filter projects and missions by area of impact, mission area, or both.

A myESSENCE dashboard example using simulated data.

Health Surveillance

APL’s leadership in electronic disease surveillance, both at home and abroad, is making a difference on the front lines of protecting the health of a population.
Learn more about Health Surveillance
Neptune Rendering

Ice Giant Research and Exploration

In the decades since NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft explored the solar system’s ice giants, Uranus and Neptune, APL has made concerted efforts to underscore the scientific value of these planets and provide innovative conceptual missions to return to their azure skies. Through research, workshops, and seminars, APL researchers and engineers are helping establish a framework and community that will maximize the scientific returns of a potential future mission.
Learn more about Ice Giant Research and Exploration
IMAP Spacecraft rendering

IMAP

NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission, which APL is building in partnership with Principal Investigator David McComas of Princeton University, will explore our solar neighborhood, called the heliosphere — decoding the messages in particles from the Sun and beyond our cosmic shield.
Learn more about IMAP
Cybersecurity (Credit: Bigstock)

Integrated Adaptive Cyber Defense (IACD)

APL conceptualized, prototyped, and published a framework enabling the integration and automation of diverse cybersecurity solutions to dramatically increase the speed and scale of cyber defense.
Learn more about Integrated Adaptive Cyber Defense (IACD)
Sonar screen (Credit: Bigstock)

Integrated Undersea Surveillance Systems

We are solving critical challenges for the Navy’s undersea surveillance community, making contributions such as active and passive sonar processing algorithms for inclusion in the Advanced Surveillance Build tactical sonar modernization program.
Learn more about Integrated Undersea Surveillance Systems
Erik Johnson, a machine learning researcher at Johns Hopkins APL, demonstrating how agents are evaluated for lifelong learning on ISC-developed L2Explorer.

Lifelong Learning Machines

Enabling intelligent systems that continuously adapt to changing conditions and missions in the real world.
Learn more about Lifelong Learning Machines
Astronauts on the lunar surface

Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative

APL holds a key leadership role in NASA’s Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative (LSII), which aims to spur the development and deployment of technologies enabling humans to live and work on the Moon.
Learn more about Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative
Lunar Swirls

Lunar Vertex

Lunar Vertex will be the first mission to carry out a comprehensive study of lunar magnetic anomaly and the associated swirl and mini-magnetosphere.
Learn more about Lunar Vertex
Brain (Credit: Bigstock)

Mapping the Brain for Machine Learning

APL leads several test and evaluation efforts for the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity’s Machine Intelligence from Cortical Networks (MICrONs) project, launched to develop state-of-the-art machine-learning capabilities by modeling how the brain processes information.
Learn more about Mapping the Brain for Machine Learning
MESSENGER Spacecraft

MESSENGER

MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) was the first mission to orbit Mercury, shedding unprecedented light on the origins and evolution of the innermost planet.
Learn more about MESSENGER
Special Operations Forces in an Arctic environment (Credit: U.S. Navy)

Mobile Communications

Special Operations Forces (SOF) continue to rely on APL expertise to understand the communications technology landscape, inform requirements development, and identify options for mobile communications capabilities across a variety of operational scenarios.
Learn more about Mobile Communications
Planes in flight (Credit: U.S. Navy/Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Joseph E. Montemarano)

Modeling Warfighter Decision-Making

Working with technical consultants and the Navy fighter aircraft community, we created a pilot-behavior model for air-to-air combat.
Learn more about Modeling Warfighter Decision-Making
Visualization of Earth with networks in Low Earth Orbit (Credit: Bigstock)

National Security Space Missions and Hardware

APL is proud to conceptualize and implement highly classified and critically important spaceflight missions to enable our nation’s security.
Learn more about National Security Space Missions and Hardware
NEAR Spacecraft in front of asteroid

NEAR

The first launch in NASA’s Discovery program, the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) was the first mission to orbit and land on an asteroid.
Learn more about NEAR
Optical physicist Michael Fitch models a prototype high-density diffuse optical imaging system, described in JJ Wathen et al. 2021.

Neural Interfaces

Directly interfacing with the nervous system to connect humans with intelligent systems.
Learn more about Neural Interfaces