The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (Applied Physics Laboratory, or APL) is a not-for-profit
university-affiliated research center (UARC) in
Howard County, Maryland. It is affiliated with
Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...
and employs 8,000 people (2022). The lab serves as a technical resource for the
Department of Defense Department of Defence or Department of Defense may refer to:
Current departments of defence
* Department of Defence (Australia)
* Department of National Defence (Canada)
* Department of Defence (Ireland)
* Department of National Defense (Philipp ...
,
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
, and other government agencies. APL has developed numerous systems and technologies in the areas of air and missile defense, surface and undersea naval warfare,
computer security
Computer security, cybersecurity (cyber security), or information technology security (IT security) is the protection of computer systems and networks from attack by malicious actors that may result in unauthorized information disclosure, the ...
, and space science and spacecraft construction. While APL provides research and engineering services to the government, it is not a traditional
defense contractor
The arms industry, also known as the arms trade, is a global industry which manufactures and sells weapons and military technology. It consists of a commercial industry involved in the research and development, engineering, production, and serv ...
, as it is a UARC and a division of Johns Hopkins University. APL is a scientific and engineering research and development division, rather than an academic division, of Johns Hopkins.
Hopkins'
Whiting School of Engineering
The G.W.C. Whiting School of Engineering is the engineering college of the Johns Hopkins University, a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland.
History
Engineering at Johns Hopkins was originally created in 1913 as an educational p ...
offers part-time graduate programs for Lab staff members through its Engineering for Professionals program. Courses are taught at seven locations in the
Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area, including the APL Education Center.
History
APL was created in 1942 during World War II under the Office of Scientific Research and Development's Section T as part of the Government's effort to mobilize the nation's science and engineering expertise within its universities. Its founding director was
Merle Anthony Tuve, who led Section T throughout the war. Section T was created on August 17, 1940. According to the official history of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, ''Scientists Against Time'', APL was the name of Section T's main laboratory from 1942 onward, not the name of the organization overall. Section T's Applied Physics Laboratory succeeded in developing the
variable-time proximity fuze that played a significant role in the Allied victory. In response to the fuze's success, the APL created the MK 57 gun director in 1944. Pleased with the APL's work, the Navy then tasked it with the mission to find a way to negate guided missile threats. From there on, the APL became very involved in wartime research.
Expected to disband at the end of the war, APL instead became heavily involved in the development of guided missile technology for the Navy. At governmental request, the University continued to maintain the Laboratory as a public service.
APL was originally located in
Silver Spring, Maryland
Silver Spring is a census-designated place (CDP) in southeastern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, near Washington, D.C. Although officially unincorporated, in practice it is an edge city, with a population of 81,015 at the 2020 ce ...
in a used-car garage
at the Wolfe Building at 8621 Georgia Avenue. APL began moving to Laurel in 1954, with the construction of a two million dollar building and a $700,000 wing expansion in 1956. The final staff transitioned to the new facility in 1975.
Before moving to Laurel, APL also maintained the "Forest Grove Station," north of Silver Spring on Georgia Avenue near today's
Forest Glen Metro, which included a hypersonic wind tunnel. The Forest Grove Station was vacated and torn down in 1963 and flight simulations were moved to Laurel.
The Laboratory's name comes from its origins in World War II, but APL's major strengths are
systems engineering
Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering and engineering management that focuses on how to design, integrate, and manage complex systems over their enterprise life cycle, life cycles. At its core, systems engineering util ...
and technology application. More than three-quarters of the staff are technical professionals, and 25% have
computer science
Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...
and math degrees. APL conducts programs in fundamental and applied research; exploratory and advanced development; test and evaluation; and systems engineering and integration.
Wartime contributions
During the 1950s and the 1960s APL worked with the US Navy in the
Operation Bumblebee
Operation Bumblebee was a US Navy effort to develop surface to air missiles (SAMs) to provide a mid-range layer of anti-aircraft defence, between anti-aircraft guns in the short range and fighter aircraft operating at long range. A major reason f ...
Program on the
Talos missile
Bendix RIM-8 Talos was a long-range naval surface-to-air missile, and was among the earliest surface-to-air missiles to equip United States Navy ships. The Talos used radar beam riding for guidance to the vicinity of its target, and semiactive ...
,
Tartar missile, Terrier, and
RIM-2 Terrier
The Convair RIM-2 Terrier was a two-stage medium-range naval surface-to-air missile (SAM), and was among the earliest surface-to-air missiles to equip United States Navy ships. It underwent significant upgrades while in service, starting with ...
Surface to Air Missile systems. The follow-on
RIM-50 Typhon
Typhon was a missile system developed by the United States Navy in the late 1950s, intended to serve as an integrated air-defense system for Navy fleets. Consisting of the SAM-N-8 Typhon LR, later designated RIM-50A, and the SAM-N-9 Typhon MR, la ...
Missile Project, based on improved Talos and Tartar Missiles, while successful, was cancelled in 1963 due to high costs and was eventually developed into the now well-known
Aegis Combat System
The Aegis Combat System is an American integrated naval weapons system developed by the Missile and Surface Radar Division of RCA, and it is now produced by Lockheed Martin.
Initially used by the United States Navy, Aegis is now used also by ...
based on an improved Terrier.
In 1990, APL became involved with
Operation Desert Storm
Operation or Operations may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media
* ''Operation'' (game), a battery-operated board game that challenges dexterity
* Operation (music), a term used in musical set theory
* ''Operations'' (magazine), Multi-Man ...
and was involved in the among other efforts. In the same decade (1992), APL, along with Johns Hopkins University, developed an algorithm that allowed for automatic mammogram analysis.
Pershing
In 1965, the US Army contracted with APL to develop and implement a test and evaluation program for the
Pershing missile
The MGM-31A Pershing was the missile used in the Pershing 1 and Pershing 1a field artillery missile systems. It was a solid-fueled two-stage theater ballistic missile designed and built by Martin Marietta to replace the PGM-11 Redstone missile as ...
systems. APL developed the Pershing Operational Test Program (OTP), provided technical support to the
Pershing Operational Test Unit
The Pershing Operational Test Unit (POTU) was the U.S. Army agency responsible for the operational testing of the Pershing 1 Field Artillery Missile System, the Pershing 1a Field Artillery Missile System and the Pershing II Weapon System. Created ...
(POTU), identified problem areas and improved the performance and survivability of the Pershing systems.
Campus
The modern Applied Physics Laboratory is located in
Laurel, Maryland
Laurel is a city in Maryland, United States, located midway between Washington and Baltimore on the banks of the Patuxent River. While the city limits are entirely in northern Prince George's County, outlying developments extend into Anne Arunde ...
, and spans 453 acres with more than 30 buildings on site. Additional auxiliary campuses exist in the surrounding areas.
Education and internships
APL is also home to a Johns Hopkins graduate program in engineering and applied sciences, called Engineering for Professionals. Courses are taught at seven locations in the
Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area, including the APL Education Center.
The center is home to several popular
internship
An internship is a period of work experience offered by an organization for a limited period of time. Once confined to medical graduates, internship is used practice for a wide range of placements in businesses, non-profit organizations and gover ...
s for high school and college students, including the ASPIRE High School Intern program for high schoolers, as well as the College Summer Intern program, ATLAS Intern Program, and RISE@APL Intern Program for college students across the country.
Research
As of APL's 70th anniversary in 2012, there were over 600 projects in progress, spanning from those in APL's more traditional areas of work, including air defense, undersea warfare precision engagement and strategic systems to newer types of projects, including those in homeland security and cyber operations.
Due to the nature of the APL's work, many of the Lab's project details are kept confidential.
Defense
The
U.S. Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...
continues to be APL's primary long-term sponsor. The Laboratory performs work for the
Missile Defense Agency
The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is the section of the United States government's Department of Defense responsible for developing a layered defense against ballistic missiles. It had its origins in the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) which ...
, the
Department of Homeland Security
The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior or home ministries of other countries. Its stated missions involve anti-terr ...
, intelligence agencies, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (
DARPA
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military.
Originally known as the Adv ...
), and others. The Laboratory supports NASA through space science,
spacecraft
A spacecraft is a vehicle or machine designed to fly in outer space. A type of artificial satellite, spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, Earth observation, meteorology, navigation, space colonization, p ...
design and fabrication, and mission operations. APL has made significant contributions in the areas of air defense, strike and power projection,
submarine
A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely op ...
security, antisubmarine warfare, strategic systems evaluation, command and control, distributed information and display systems, sensors, information processing, and space systems.
Space
![Alan Stern and New Horizons Team Celebrate Pluto Flyby](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Alan_Stern_and_New_Horizons_Team_Celebrate_Pluto_Flyby.jpg)
APL has built and operated many spacecraft, including
the TRANSIT navigation system,
Geosat
The GEOSAT (GEOdetic SATellite) was a U.S. Navy Earth observation satellite, launched on March 12, 1985 into an 800 km, 108° inclination orbit, with a nodal period of about 6040 seconds. The satellite carried a radar altimeter capable of m ...
,
ACE
An ace is a playing card, die or domino with a single pip. In the standard French deck, an ace has a single suit symbol (a heart, diamond, spade, or club) located in the middle of the card, sometimes large and decorated, especially in the c ...
,
TIMED
timed (time daemon) is an operating system program that maintains the system time in synchronization with time servers using the Time Synchronization Protocol (TSP) developed by Riccardo Gusella and Stefano Zatti. Gusella and Zatti had done e ...
,
CONTOUR
Contour may refer to:
* Contour (linguistics), a phonetic sound
* Pitch contour
* Contour (camera system), a 3D digital camera system
* Contour, the KDE Plasma 4 interface for tablet devices
* Contour line, a curve along which the function ha ...
,
MESSENGER
''MESSENGER'' was a NASA robotic space probe that orbited the planet Mercury between 2011 and 2015, studying Mercury's chemical composition, geology, and magnetic field. The name is a backronym for "Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geoche ...
,
Van Allen Probes
The Van Allen Probes, formerly known as the Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP), were two robotic spacecraft that were used to study the Van Allen radiation belts that surround Earth. NASA conducted the Van Allen Probes mission as part of the Li ...
,
the
New Horizons mission to
Pluto
Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of trans-Neptunian object, bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the S ...
, the
Parker Solar Probe
The Parker Solar Probe (PSP; previously Solar Probe, Solar Probe Plus or Solar Probe+) is a NASA space probe launched in 2018 with the mission of making observations of the outer corona of the Sun. It will approach to within 9.86 solar radii ...
mission to the outer corona of the Sun, and
STEREO
Stereophonic sound, or more commonly stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that recreates a multi-directional, 3-dimensional audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two independent audio channels through a configuration ...
.
In the early 1990s APL began building robotic
space probe
A space probe is an artificial satellite that travels through space to collect scientific data. A space probe may orbit Earth; approach the Moon; travel through interplanetary space; flyby, orbit, or land or fly on other planetary bodies; or ent ...
s. It won the contract to build NEAR for one third the price that
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center in the City of La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States.
Founded in the 1930s by Caltech researchers, JPL is owned by NASA an ...
(JPL), NASA's traditional supplier, estimated. APL's bid caused NASA to create the
Discovery Program to solicit competing proposals for other missions. By the early 21st century ''
Science
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
'' described the two organizations as rivals.
In 2019, the APL-proposed
Dragonfly
A dragonfly is a flying insect belonging to the infraorder Anisoptera below the order Odonata. About 3,000 extant species of true dragonfly are known. Most are tropical, with fewer species in temperate regions. Loss of wetland habitat threate ...
mission was selected as the fourth NASA
New Frontiers mission.
[NASA's Dragonfly Will Fly Around Titan Looking for Origins, Signs of Life]
''NASA''. June 27, 2019. Retrieved July 6, 2019. Dragonfly is a relocatable lander in an X8 octocopter configuration that will explore Saturn's moon Titan by flying between landing sites to move around the moon's surface. In November 2021, APL launched the Double Asteroid Redirection Test
Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is a NASA space mission aimed at testing a method of planetary defense against near-Earth objects (NEOs). It was designed to assess how much a spacecraft impact deflects an asteroid through its transfe ...
(or DART) mission, which struck the smaller body of a binary asteroid system in September of 2022; this is the first NASA planetary defense mission.
The asteroid
An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere.
...
132524 APL was named in honor of APL after a flyby by the New Horizons spacecraft.
Prosthetics
In 2014, APL made history with the successful use of the ''Modular Prosthetic Limb'' — a fully artificial articulated arm and hand — by a bilateral shoulder-level amputee
Amputation is the removal of a limb by trauma, medical illness, or surgery. As a surgical measure, it is used to control pain or a disease process in the affected limb, such as malignancy or gangrene. In some cases, it is carried out on indiv ...
. APL used pattern recognition algorithms to track which muscles were contracting and enable the prosthetics to move in conjunction with the amputee's body.
Similar technology was used in 2016 for a demonstration in which a paralyzed man was able to "fist-bump" Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
using signals sent from an implanted brain chip. The limb returned sensory feedback from the arm to the wearer's brain.
Drones
The APL researches and produces unmanned aerial vehicle
An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controller ...
s for the US military. One of its most recent projects is an unmanned aerial swarm that can be controlled by a single operator on the ground.
See also
*
* Tom Krimigis
*Michael D. Griffin
Michael Douglas Griffin (born November 1, 1949) is an American physicist and aerospace engineer who served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering from 2018 to 2020. He previously served as Deputy of Technology for the Str ...
*Ralph Semmel
Ralph D. Semmel is an American engineer and computer scientist. He became the eighth director of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland on July 1, 2010. Dr. Ralph Semmel', thedailyrecord.com
Biography ...
* Christine Fox
*James N. Miller
James Northey Miller Jr. (born August 15, 1959) is the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory's Assistant Director for Policy and Analysis and also serves on the National Security Council staff as U.S. Coordinator for the Australia-United Kingd ...
References
External links
APL home page
{{authority control
Johns Hopkins University
Laurel, Maryland
Physics laboratories
University and college laboratories in the United States
Educational institutions established in 1942
1942 establishments in Maryland
Buildings and structures in Laurel, Maryland
Space technology research institutes