Black project is an informal term used to describe a highly

classified Classified may refer to: General *Classified information, material that a government body deems to be sensitive *Classified advertising or "classifieds" Music *Classified (rapper) (born 1977), Canadian rapper * The Classified, a 1980s American ro ...

, top-secret military or defense project that is not publicly acknowledged by

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), execu ...

, military personnel, or contractors.

United States and black projects

In the United States, the formal term for a black project is an ''unacknowledged

special access program Special access programs (SAPs) in the U.S. Federal Government are security protocols that provide highly classified information with safeguards and access restrictions that exceed those for regular (collateral) classified information. SAPs can r ...

'' (''SAP''). Black projects receive their funding from the black budget. The US depends on private defense contractors to develop and build military equipment. The two most notable examples are

Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American Arms industry, defense and aerospace manufacturer with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta on March 15, 1995. It is headquartered in North ...

and

Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman Corporation is an American multinational Aerospace manufacturer, aerospace and Arms industry, defense company. With 97,000 employees and an annual revenue in excess of $40 billion, it is one of the world's largest Arms industry ...

. The R&D department of Lockheed Martin is commonly referred to as

Skunk Works Skunk Works is an official pseudonym for Lockheed Martin's Advanced Development Programs (ADP), formerly called Lockheed Advanced Development Projects. It is responsible for a number of aircraft designs, highly classified research and developme ...

; it is responsible for a number of aircraft designs, highly classified R&D programs, and exotic aircraft platforms. Two well known sites for testing of black projects are the Nevada Test site and

Area 51 Area 51 is the common name of a highly classified United States Air Force (USAF) facility within the Nevada Test and Training Range in southern Nevada, north-northwest of Las Vegas. A remote detachment administered by Edwards Air Force B ...

Previously unacknowledged

Below are examples of previously unacknowledged black projects categorized per country.

China

* Nuclear weapons program * Xian H-20 subsonic stealth bomber aircraft

France

* Nuclear Weapons program

North Korea

* Nuclear weapons program

Russia

Kh-47M2 Kinzhal The Kh-47M2 Kinzhal ( rus, Х-47М2 Кинжал, p=kʲɪn'ʐaɫ, 'Dagger'; NATO reporting name: AS-24 Killjoy) is a Russian air-launched ballistic missile. It has an estimated range of and a reported top speed of Mach 10. It can carry either ...

air-launched "Iskander" ballistic missile

South Africa (apartheid-era)

Project Coast Project Coast was a top-secret chemical and biological weapons (CBW) programme instituted by the apartheid-era government of South Africa in the 1980s. Project Coast was the successor to a limited postwar CBW programme, which mainly produced the ...

chemical and biological weapons program *

Atlas Carver The Atlas Carver (sometimes erroneously referred to as "CAVA") was a proposed South African twin-engine, delta wing fourth-generation fighter aircraft. In development during the 1980s and early 1990s, the Carver was ultimately cancelled during ...

multirole fighter aircraft

Soviet Union

* Nuclear weapons program *

Sputnik 1 Sputnik 1 (, , ''Satellite 1''), sometimes referred to as simply Sputnik, was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 as part of the Soviet space program ...

artificial Earth satellite *

Typhoon A typhoon is a tropical cyclone that develops between 180° and 100°E in the Northern Hemisphere and which produces sustained hurricane-force winds of at least . This region is referred to as the Northwestern Pacific Basin, accounting for a ...

submarine *

Vostok programme The Vostok programme ( ; rus, Восток, p=vɐˈstok, a=ru-восток.ogg, t=East) was a Soviet human spaceflight project to put the first Soviet cosmonauts into low Earth orbit and return them safely. Competing with the United States P ...

human spaceflight project

Sweden

* Nuclear weapons program (was never completed)

Switzerland

Switzerland and weapons of mass destruction Switzerland made detailed plans to acquire and test nuclear weapons during the Cold War. Less than two weeks after the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Swiss government started studying the possibility of building nuclear weapons ...

United Kingdom

Ultra Ultra may refer to: Science and technology * Ultra (cryptography), the codename for cryptographic intelligence obtained from signal traffic in World War II * Adobe Ultra, a vector-keying application * Sun Ultra series, a brand of computer work ...

WW2 Decryption Programme *

Tube Alloys Tube Alloys was the research and development programme authorised by the United Kingdom, with participation from Canada, to develop nuclear weapons during the Second World War. Starting before the Manhattan Project in the United States, the Bri ...

WW2 Nuclear Weapons Programme *

High Explosive Research High Explosive Research (HER) was the British project to develop atomic bombs independently after the Second World War. This decision was taken by a cabinet sub-committee on 8 January 1947, in response to apprehension of an American retur ...

Post-war Nuclear Weapons programme *

Zircon Zircon () is a mineral belonging to the group of nesosilicates and is a source of the metal zirconium. Its chemical name is zirconium(IV) silicate, and its corresponding chemical formula is Zr SiO4. An empirical formula showing some of th ...

Signals Intelligence Satellite

United States

Boeing Bird of Prey The Boeing Bird of Prey is an American black project aircraft, intended to demonstrate stealth technology. It was developed by McDonnell Douglas and Boeing in the 1990s.

stealth technology demonstrator *

Hughes Mining Barge The ''Hughes Mining Barge'', or ''HMB-1'', is a submersible barge about 99 m (324 ft) long, 32 m (106 ft) wide, and more than 27 m (90 ft) tall. The ''HMB-1'' was originally developed as part of Project Azorian (mo ...

CIA project authorized 1974 to raise sunken Soviet submarine

K-129 ''K-129'' was a Project 629A (, ; NATO reporting name Golf II–class) diesel-electric-powered ballistic-missile submarine that served in the Pacific Fleet of the Soviet Navy. It was one of six Project 629 strategic ballistic-missile submar ...

KH-11 Kennen The KH-11 KENNEN (later renamed CRYSTAL,p.199-200 then Evolved Enhanced CRYSTAL System, and codenamed 1010 and Key Hole) is a type of reconnaissance satellite first launched by the American National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) in December 19 ...

reconnaissance satellite *

Lockheed CL-400 Suntan Suntan was the code-name of a prototype reconnaissance aircraft program, with the goal of creating a much faster and higher-altitude successor to the U-2, enabled by the use of liquid hydrogen (LH2) as aircraft fuel. The program was cancelled ...

high-altitude, high-speed reconnaissance prototype *

Lockheed Have Blue Lockheed ''Have Blue'' was the code name for Lockheed's proof of concept demonstrator for a stealth fighter. ''Have Blue'' was designed by Lockheed's Skunk Works division, and tested at Groom Lake, Nevada. The ''Have Blue'' was the first fi ...

stealth technology demonstrator *

Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk The Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk is an officially retired American single-seat, subsonic, twin-engined, stealth attack aircraft developed by Lockheed's secretive Skunk Works division and operated by the United States Air Force (USAF). It was ...

stealth ground-attack aircraft * Lockheed Martin Polecat unmanned aerial vehicle *

Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel The Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel, nicknamed Wraith, is an American unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) developed by Lockheed Martin and operated by the United States Air Force (USAF) for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). While the USAF has ...

Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird The Lockheed SR-71 "Blackbird" is a retired long-range, high-altitude, Mach 3+ strategic reconnaissance aircraft developed and manufactured by the American aerospace company Lockheed Corporation. Its nicknames include " Blackbird" and ...

Mach 3.3 very high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft *

Lockheed Martin SR-72 The Lockheed Martin SR-72, commonly referred to as "Son of Blackbird," is an American hypersonic concept intended for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR). Proposed privately in 2013 by Lockheed Martin as a successor to the ...

Lockheed U-2 The Lockheed U-2, nicknamed the "''Dragon Lady''", is an American single-engine, high–altitude reconnaissance aircraft operated by the United States Air Force (USAF) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) since the 1950s. Designed for all- ...

very high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft *

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development program undertaken during World War II to produce the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States in collaboration with the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the ...

Nuclear weapons program *

Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit The Northrop B-2 Spirit, also known as the Stealth Bomber, is an American Heavy bomber, heavy strategic bomber, featuring low-observable stealth aircraft, stealth technology designed to penetrator (aircraft), penetrate dense anti-aircraft war ...

stealth bomber *

Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider The Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider is an American strategic bomber in development for the United States Air Force (USAF) by Northrop Grumman. Part of the Long Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B) program, it is to be a stealth aircraft, stealth interconti ...

stealth bomber *

Northrop Grumman RQ-180 The Northrop Grumman RQ-180 is an American Stealth aircraft, stealth unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) surveillance aircraft intended for contested airspace. , there had been no images or statements released, but evidence points to the existence o ...

stealth unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) surveillance aircraft *

Northrop Tacit Blue The Northrop Tacit Blue is a technology demonstrator aircraft created to demonstrate that a low-observable Stealth technology, stealth surveillance aircraft with a low probability of intercept radar, low-probability-of-intercept radar (LPIR) and ...

* RQ-3 Dark Star high altitude reconnaissance UAV *

Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk The Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk is a four-blade, twin-engine, medium-lift military utility helicopter manufactured by Sikorsky Aircraft. Sikorsky submitted a design for the United States Army's Utility Tactical Transport Aircraft System (UTTAS ...

stealth helicopter * Lockheed Sea Shadow (IX-529) experimental stealth US Navy ship

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Black Project United States defense procurement Secret government programs