Steven Walker, director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and several agency leaders visited the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge (LHD 3) Sept. 18 as part of their annual Department of Defense fleet and field assessment.

The purpose of these assessments is to firsthand evaluate the effectiveness of DoD platforms, equipment and technology in helping warfighters meet their mission.

This year’s assessment theme is “the Naval fight.” DARPA asked to visit Kearsarge to better understand Navy and Marine Corps integration, with an emphasis on amphibious ship-to-shore transportation of Marines and their equipment, as well as unit defense capabilities.

“We wanted to learn more about the Marine Corps and the Navy and how the two are thinking about distributed maritime operations, specifically for the Pacific theater,” Walker said. “We’re hearing a lot about new Marine Corps operations for the Pacific and how expeditionary they want to be. We wanted to learn more about the support the Navy will provide the Marine Corps to accomplish that mission.”

Tour guides and subject matter experts provided feedback about their equipment to the DARPA engagement team.

“They wanted to know what our capabilities are and what sort of problems we run into,” said Aviation Electronics Technician 1st Class Phillip Craven. “We spoke about upgrading our systems used to support aircraft, particularly the Consolidated Automated Support System.”

While in the Hampton Roads area, DARPA also visited U.S. Fleet Forces Command and a naval shipyard, to make contacts and discuss the needs of both organizations.

“What we do with this information is go back to DARPA and talk about how technology could make a difference to help the Marine Corps and Navy,” Walker said. “We hope to get some of the leaders from the branches to DARPA to show them what we’re doing to help them, but also for them to tell us what their most difficult challenges are, so we can put [our] program managers to work on solutions for the future.”

DARPA was formed in 1957 by President Eisenhower in response to the launch of the Russian satellite Sputnik. Eisenhower vowed to never again be surprised by technology, and for the past 60 years DARPA has been the DoD innovative engine, producing capabilities such as precision weapons and stealth technology.

DARPA is composed of six technical offices who together oversee about 250 research and development programs.

For more news from USS Kearsarge (LHD 3), visit http://www.navy.mil/local/lhd3/ and “Like” www.facebook.com/LHD3.

Get more information about the Navy from US Navy facebook or twitter.

For more news from USS Kearsarge (LHD 3), visit www.navy.mil/.