The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (or simply Applied Physics Laboratory, or APL) is a not-for-profit university-affiliated research center (UARC) in

Howard County, Maryland Howard County is a County (United States), county located in the U.S. state of Maryland. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population is 334,529. Since there are no incorporated municipalities, there is no incorporated coun ...

. It is affiliated with

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

and employs 8,700 people as of 2024. APL is the nation's largest UARC. The lab serves as a technical resource for the

Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and supervising the six U.S. armed services: the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force, ...

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

, 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 (also cybersecurity, digital security, or information technology (IT) security) is a subdiscipline within the field of information security. It consists of the protection of computer software, systems and computer network, n ...

, and space science and spacecraft construction. While APL provides research and engineering services to the government, it is not a traditional

defense contractor A defense contractor is a business organization or individual that provides products or services to a military or intelligence department of a government. Products typically include military or civilian aircraft, ships, vehicles, weaponry, and ...

, 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 Whiting School of Engineering is the engineering school of the Johns Hopkins University, a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. History The engineering department at Johns Hopkins was originally created in 1913 as an educatio ...

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 area, unincorporated, it is an edge city with a population of 81,015 at the 2020 ...

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. In the 1960s, APL built a mobile automaton called the Johns Hopkins Beast. 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 uti ...

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, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

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 defense between anti-aircraft guns in the short range and fighter aircraft operating at long range. A major reason ...

Program on the Talos missile,

Tartar missile The General Dynamics RIM-24 Tartar was a medium-range naval surface-to-air missile (SAM), among the earliest SAMs to equip United States Navy ships. The Tartar was the third of the so-called "3 Ts", the three primary SAMs the Navy fielded in the ...

, Terrier, and

RIM-2 Terrier The Convair RIM-2 Terrier was a two-stage medium-range naval surface-to-air missile (SAM), among the earliest SAMs to equip United States Navy ships. It underwent significant upgrades while in service, starting with beam-riding guidance with a r ...

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, l ...

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 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 a ...

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, D.C., and Baltimore on the banks of the Patuxent River, in northern Prince George's County. Its population was 30,060 at the 2020 census. Founded as a mill town i ...

, and spans 461 acres with more than 30 buildings on site. Additional auxiliary campuses exist in the surrounding areas. The campus includes multiple innovation and collaboration spaces as well as labs and test facilities. In 2021, APL opened an interdisciplinary research center, known as Building 201, with 263,000 square feet of space, a 200-person auditorium and more than 90,000 square feet of specialized laboratory space. The building also includes a four-story atrium, a STEM Center and a combination of 100 huddle, conference and auditorium breakout rooms. APL hired its first full-time sustainability manager in 2022.

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. APL's

STEM Stem or STEM most commonly refers to: * Plant stem, a structural axis of a vascular plant * Stem group * Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics Stem or STEM can also refer to: Language and writing * Word stem, part of a word respon ...

includes several internships and programs, including the Maryland MESA program, which is an after-school program for students in grades 3-12; APL STEM in the Community, which focuses on STEM community outreach; the STEM Academy, which is an after-school course program for middle and high school students (grades 8-12); and APL's Student Program to Inspire, Relate and Enrich (ASPIRE), which allows high school juniors and seniors to experience and explore STEM careers before college.

Research

As of APL's 80th anniversary in 2022, there were hundreds of projects spanning the Lab's 12 mission areas, that focus on solving complex research, engineering and analytical problems that present critical challenges to the United States. Projects span from those in APL's more traditional areas of work, including air and missile defense, undersea warfare, to newer projects such as homeland security, artificial intelligence and cyber operations.

Defense

The

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest displacement, at 4.5 million tons in 2021. It has the world's largest aircraft ...

continues to be APL's primary long-term sponsor. The Laboratory performs work for the

Missile Defense Agency The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is a component of the Federal government of the United States, United States government's United States Department of Defense, Department of Defense responsible for developing a comprehensive Missile defense, defe ...

, 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, home, or public security ministries in other countries. Its missions invol ...

, 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 Adva ...

), and others. The Laboratory supports NASA through space science,

spacecraft A spacecraft is a vehicle that is designed spaceflight, to fly and operate in outer space. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including Telecommunications, communications, Earth observation satellite, Earth observation, Weather s ...

design and fabrication, and mission operations. APL has made significant contributions in the areas of air defense, strike and power projection,

submarine A submarine (often shortened to sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. (It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability.) The term "submarine" is also sometimes used historically or infor ...

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

APL has built and operated many spacecraft, including the

Transit Transit may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film * ''Transit'' (1980 film), a 1980 Israeli film * ''Transit'' (1986 film), a Canadian short film * ''Transit'' (2005 film), a film produced by MTV and Staying-Alive about four people in countrie ...

navigation system, Geosat,

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 a club) located in the middle of the card, sometimes large and decorated, especially in the ...

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 Airlines * Contour flying, a form of low level flight * Contour, the KDE Plasma 4 interface for tab ...

, ''

MESSENGER Messenger, Messengers, The Messenger or The Messengers may refer to: People * Courier, a person or company that delivers messages, packages, or mail * Messenger (surname) * Bicycle messenger, a bicyclist who transports packages through cities * M ...

'',

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 Liv ...

, the ''

New Horizons ''New Horizons'' is an Interplanetary spaceflight, interplanetary space probe launched as a part of NASA's New Frontiers program. Engineered by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Southwest Research Institut ...

'' 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 Su ...

, 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 to make observations of the Stellar corona, Sun's outer corona. It used repeated Gravity assist, gravity assists from ...

mission to the outer corona of the Sun, and

STEREO Stereophonic sound, commonly shortened to 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 configurat ...

. In the early 1990s APL began building robotic

space probe Uncrewed spacecraft or robotic spacecraft are spacecraft without people on board. Uncrewed spacecraft may have varying levels of autonomy from human input, such as remote control, or remote guidance. They may also be autonomous, in which th ...

s. It won the contract to build

NEAR Shoemaker ''Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous – Shoemaker'' (''NEAR Shoemaker''), renamed after its 1996 launch in honor of planetary scientist Eugene Merle Shoemaker, Eugene Shoemaker, was a Robotic spacecraft, robotic space probe designed by the Johns ...

for one third the price that

Jet Propulsion Laboratory The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) in La Cañada Flintridge, California, Crescenta Valley, United States. Founded in 1936 by Cali ...

(JPL), NASA's traditional supplier, estimated. APL's bid caused NASA to create the

Discovery Program The Discovery Program is a series of Solar System exploration missions funded by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) through its Planetary Missions Program Office. The cost of each mission is capped at a lower level t ...

to solicit competing proposals for other missions. 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 dragonflies are known. Most are tropical, with fewer species in temperate regions. Loss of wetland habitat threat ...

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 Titan most often refers to: * Titan (moon), the largest moon of Saturn * Titans, a race of deities in Greek mythology Titan or Titans may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional entities Fictional locations * Titan in fiction, fictiona ...

by flying between landing sites to move around the moon's surface. In November 2021, APL launched the

Double Asteroid Redirection Test The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) was 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 trans ...

(DART) mission, which struck the smaller body of a binary asteroid system in September 2022 and was the first NASA planetary defense mission. The

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

132524 APL 132524 APL (Provisional designation in astronomy, provisional designation ) is a small background asteroid in the intermediate asteroid belt. It was discovered by Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research in May 2002, and imaged by the ''New Horizons ...

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 or other body part 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 ...

. 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 was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

using signals sent from an implanted brain chip. The limb returned sensory feedback from the arm to the wearer's brain. In 2023, APL announced that researchers have developed one of the world's smallest, most intense and fastest refrigeration devices, the wearable thin-film thermoelectric cooler (TFTEC), and teamed with neuroscientists to help amputees perceive a sense of temperature with their phantom limbs. The technology won an R&D 100 award in 2023.

Drones

APL researches and produces

unmanned aerial vehicle An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or unmanned aircraft system (UAS), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft with no human pilot, crew, or passengers onboard, but rather is controlled remotely or is autonomous.De Gruyter Handbook of Dron ...

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.

References

{{authority control Johns Hopkins University Laurel, Maryland Physics laboratories University and college laboratories in the United States Research institutes established in 1942 1942 establishments in Maryland Buildings and structures in Laurel, Maryland Space technology research institutes