The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc., formerly the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, was founded by Charles Stark Draper in the late 1930s to teach students how to design the scientific instruments necessary to accurately measure and study aircraft motion. During World War II, the Instrumentation Lab developed the Inertial navigation system; this became its principal focus after receiving United States Department of Defense research contracts to develop navigation systems for ballistic missiles. The "I Lab" developed the guidance systems for Project Apollo and the Polaris missile. Draper was spun off from MIT in 1973, in part due to anti-war protests. Albert G. Hill was the director at the time of separation from MIT.
Draper Lab is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts and has approximately 1400 employees. It focuses primarily on guidance, navigation, and control systems although as a US Government contractor it has contracts in many areas of technical development, including space, tactical, energy, and biomedical research.
See also
External links
- Draper Laboratory website
- MIT and the Pentagon (Time magazine, 1969)
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