IonQ Awarded $28M DARPA Contract Extension for Atomic Clocks; Secures NRO Radar Satellite Award

IonQ Awarded $28M DARPA Contract Extension for Atomic Clocks; Secures NRO Radar Satellite Award Quantum computing, networking, and sensing platform provider IonQ (NYSE: IONQ) has announced two strategic defense sector awards expanding its national security portfolio across quantum position, navigation, and timing (PNT) and commercial space intelligence. [ IonQ Federal & Defense Portfolio Expansion ] │ ┌─────────────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────────────┐ ▼ ▼ DARPA "It's About Time" Contract ($28M) NRO Radar Commercial Augmentation (RCA) • Deliver 125 Evergreen-05 Optical Atomic Clocks. • Commercial Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Data. • $15M Direct Capital Investment in Production. • Capella Subsidiary Space Intelligence Services. • Tactical 5-Liter Form Factor for Defense PNT. • Persistent All-Weather, Day/Night Earth Observation. DARPA Selects IonQ for Next-Generation Optical Atomic Clocks Under a $28 million contract extension granted through DARPA’s It’s About Time program, IonQ will scale manufacturing capacity to produce and deliver 125 Evergreen-05 optical atomic clocks to U.S. government customers. The Evergreen-05 is a compact, fully integrated optical clock featuring a 5-liter, shoe-box-sized form factor engineered for tactical deployment across land, maritime, and airborne platforms. The Evergreen-05 delivers a timing stability of 50 femtoseconds at one second and a 10-day holdover error of under one nanosecond—projecting a timing error of less than one second over 30 million years. Compared to conventional active hydrogen masers, the system provides equivalent long-term drift and superior phase noise performance while occupying 1/75th of the physical volume. To meet government delivery schedules, IonQ will invest $15 million in a dedicated manufacturing facility, advanced testing equipment, and technical support staff. The core Evergreen-05 technology originated under DARPA’s Robust Optical Clock Network (ROCN) program with startup Vector Atomic, which IonQ acquired in October 2025 to form its quantum sensing and PNT division. Capella Awarded NRO Commercial Radar Augmentation Contract Simultaneously, Capella, an IonQ company, was awarded a contract under the National Reconnaissance Office’s (NRO) Radar Commercial Augmentation (RCA) program. Under the agreement, Capella will supply commercial synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery and sensor data services to support U.S. national security missions, tactical operational awareness, and intelligence data integration. Capella’s constellation delivers high-resolution, all-weather, day-and-night radar imagery capable of penetrating cloud cover and extreme environmental conditions. The contract reinforces IonQ’s space platform footprint following its acquisition of Capella Space in 2025, supporting both military remote sensing requirements and long-term space-based Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) infrastructure. Review official announcement details on the IonQ Newsroom here, inspect space intelligence specs via Capella Space Services here, and examine our previous coverage of IonQ’s Vector Atomic Acquisition here and Capella Space Integration here. August 6, 2026 Mohamed Abdel-Kareem2026-08-06T05:58:05-07:00 Leave A Comment Cancel replyComment Type in the text displayed above Δ This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.