The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc.
An independent nonprofit engineering firm founded in 1930, developing guidance, biomedical and autonomous systems for space, national security and human health.
The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc. is an independent nonprofit engineering innovation company founded in 1930. Its multidisciplinary teams of engineers and scientists - more than 2,000 in total - deliver solutions across space exploration, biomedical engineering, national security and human health. The laboratory operates in the United States and has been in operation for over 90 years.
Technical work spans guidance, navigation and control systems, biotechnology, cyber-physical systems, autonomous solutions, biomedical engineering, space systems and organ-on-a-chip technology. Historical projects include the Apollo Guidance Computer, the guidance computer engineered by Draper that enabled the Apollo lunar landings. Current programmes include organ-on-a-chip technologies applied to healthcare.
The laboratory's work is organised around multidisciplinary teams operating collaboratively across domains, with a stated culture built on the cross-fertilisation of ideas. Its industry verticals include national security, space systems, space exploration, strategic defence, human health, healthcare and biomedical engineering - domains in which, the laboratory notes, lives often depend on the work.