DARPA Lift Challenge
The DARPA Lift Challenge aims to shatter the heavy lift bottleneck, seeking novel drone designs that can carry payloads more than four times their weight, which would revolutionize the way we use drones across all sectors.
Program Manager: Phillip "Donna" Smith
By day
Aug. 9
Full broadcast | 7:37:00
All lanes | 10:34:00
Recap | 1:47
Aug. 8
Full broadcast | 10:34:00
All lanes | 10:34:00
Recap | 1:18
Aug. 7
Full broadcast | 6:20:00
All lanes | 6:18:00
Recap | 1:00
Aug. 6
Full broadcast | 7:44:00
All lanes | 7:44:00
Recap | 1:00
Aug. 5
Full broadcast | 6:35:00
All lanes | 6:35:00
Recap | 0:52
Aug. 4
Full broadcast | 8:28:00
All lanes | 8:28:00
Recap | 0:49
Aug. 3
Full broadcast | 7:37:00
All lanes | 7:09:00
Recap | 0:39
Aug. 2
Full broadcast | 7:37:00
All lanes | 7:09:00
Recap (Aug. 8) | 7:09:00
On the field
Lift Happens: Best of the crashes | 2:10
Safety first | 1:30
Navigating the course | 0:49
Photos
Aug. 9
Meet the winners
Aug. 8
Several teams attempted scoring runs to get above a 4:1 ratio. DARPA leadership was onsite to meet the teams, hear their insights, and celebrated their boldness and innovation.
Aug. 7
A new team was atop the leaderboard and some existing leaders improved their ratios before a series of afternoon storms ended flights for the day.
Aug. 6
The Challenge opened to the public and the hosted livestream began providing live commentary of flights.
Aug. 5
Teams began their second flight attempts of the competition. A payload-to-weight record was crushed and a new team claimed the top spot on the leaderboard.
Aug. 4
Teams continued their first attempts for their scored flights at DARPA Lift Challenge, as they competed for $6.5 million in prizes. DARPA announced leaderboard and "chaser" board.
Aug. 3
Teams flew their aircraft for safety test flights and official runs.
Aug. 2
The first wave of teams moved in ahead of the weeklong competition at the grounds of the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force.
