Documents / Official release
This Defense Intelligence Reference Document, DIA-08-0911-016, is dated 14 December 2009. It was prepared by the Defense Warning Office's Acquisition Support Division at the Defense Intelligence Agency and is one of a series of FY 2009 advanced technology reports under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications program. It is a primer on programmable matter and smart materials such as quantum dots, metamaterials and liquid crystals, and on how they could manage heat and energy and provide camouflage on spacecraft. It concludes that the possible gains would be significant and well worth pursuing.
From the source: Release of 2026-09-18 Incident: 12/14/09, Las Vegas, Nevada. Released with redactions. This document is a Defense Intelligence Reference Document (DIRD), a technical reference format used by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to capture baseline knowledge on a specific topic for later analytic use. DIRDs are best understood as reference and synthesis products rather than as original research. It is one of 38 DIRDs produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) between 2009 and 2011. Because AAWSAP’s scope permitted a broad range of supporting topics, not every DIRD in the series directly concerns aerospace systems or future threat assessment. The following summary reflects the DIRD’s scope and framing at the time of writing and should not be read as implying current validation of the concepts discussed. This DIRD describes “programmable matter” as smart materials whose properties can be changed on command, potentially allowing spacecraft components to change function through software updates rather than physical repair or replacement. The report suggests that such materials could someday enable adjustable sensors, smart windows, heat control, energy collection, active camouflage, and systems that switch between different functions, making spacecraft more flexible and adaptable. At the same time, it presents the idea as highly speculative and emphasizes major technical obstacles, including manufacturing at extremely small scales, shielding against radiation and electromagnetic interference, managing temperature effects, reducing component failures, and preventing hacking or malicious control. Overall, the document presents programmable matter as a promising long-term concept over the next 50 years, while judging that simpler near-term uses such as smart windows and energy-saving surface materials are far more realistic than the more ambitious aerospace applications.
UNCLASSIFIED/ /FOA QFFl&IAb 1!181!! OHtV products may be both cheaper than, and of superior quality to, those produced by the aerospace industry. Assuming this trend holds true across the next four decades and applies even to exotic technologies such as programmable materials, it is logical to suppose that consumer applications such as smart windows and multispectral night-vision sensors are more likely to spin off to the aerospace industry than the reverse. Therefore, advancement of smart materials technology for aerospace applications will likely depend on research and development for consumer applications. In addition, the "low-hanging fruit" applications, with the largest markets and thus the highest profit potential, will have the greatest accelerant effect on the technology. Therefore, near-term applications such as smart windows and energy-saving metapolarizers, which offer direct and immediate economic advantages (namely energy savings) and which dovetail neatly with existing infrastructure, should be considered the most promising for research over the next 5 years. Over the longer term, a number of problems must be overcome for fully programmable material devices to be constructed. In the case of metamaterials, the primary challenge is fabrication. Numerous nanopatterning techniques have been developed for producing regular patterns on a surface, including grids, gratings, and patterns of dots or holes. However, the resonant properties of metamaterials typically require more complex structures that are not easily mass produced on the scales necessary for optical wavelengths-typically 100 nanometers or less, and often as little as 10 nanometers. Promising candidate technologies include nanoindentation lithography, extreme ultraviolet photolithography, and photolithography using metamaterials-based "superlenses." Liquid crystal technology is more mature, but to survive in the harsh environment of outer space, it may need to evolve higher resistance to ultraviolet and other forms of ionizing radiation, Perhaps the most promising long-term technology is the addressable quantum dot array. However, for broadly programmable applications-particularly in aerospace-the issue of temperature sensitivity must be brought under control. This may involve direct temperature control of the active surfaces or development of high-bandgap material systems for which the coefficient of thermal expansion and bandgap versus temperature slope are both small, In addition, shielding the metallic nanostructures against interference from stray electric or magnetic fields will be very important and may rely on as-yet-undeveloped techniques or materials (for example, high temperature superconductors), However, the vast potential of programmable materials and devices, as well as the clear advantages they hold in certain earthly and aerospace applications where traditional material limitations clearly constrain functionality, should not be underestimated. Building and vehicle skins, sensors, and windows are three areas that particularly lend themselves to enhancement with multifunctional materials, and the commercial advantages of developing these will be considerable. As with transistors, LEDs, LCDs, integrated circuits and other late 20th century technologies, the economic imperatives are likely to overcome many significant technological barriers, and by 2050 it seems likely that our grandchildren will have difficulty imagining a world where these objects are made from traditional, inert materials. Their relationship to material objects UNCLASSIFIED//liQA QFFIGIAk Wlii a,...v 15
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Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 20 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.