About Us

We Engineer Solutions for the Nation’s Toughest Problems

As an independent nonprofit engineering innovation company, Draper provides engineering services directly to government, industry, and academia. We work on teams as prime contractors or subcontractors and participate as collaborators in consortia.

Our strong commitment to delivering working solutions allows us to apply ourselves to a variety of domains from space to undersea — and many areas in between.

~$850+M

Revenue

2,300+

Employees

U.S. campuses

Market Areas

Our Mission

Ensure our nation’s security and prosperity by delivering transformative solutions.

Organizations Lean on our Expertise for Engineered Solutions

Mission Knowledge

We draw on decades of understanding customer problems, operational needs, and goals to engineer working solutions for today’s challenges.

Domain Expertise

Our multidisciplinary teams leverage 14 core capabilities to design solutions for our customers—whether they will use our technology in space, air, or cyberspace; on land or underground; at sea or undersea; or within the human body.

Digital Engineering Approach

We establish a complete digital representation of a system and use it throughout the lifecycle to reduce risk by enabling early and continuous system integration and evaluation.

Working Solutions

We utilize the best-suited technology to solve customer problems—whether it’s our intellectual property, commercial products, or a combination of our assets.

Customer Engagement

We engage our customers and end users in problem definition through sustainment—a tight feedback loop that ensures what we deliver meets the customers’ needs.

Our Multidisciplinary Approach Drives our Innovative Engineering

Mission Objective

As a nonprofit we answer only to our customers. We innovate to solve their problems and enable their success.

Elicitation Needs

Using their mission and domain expertise, our team works with customers to identify the root problem, which enables us to design an effective solution.

Conceptualization

We work in the broadest possible design space to generate innovative ideas that are executable.

Proof of Concept

We head off waste and ensure functionality early on through modeling and simulation or prototyping.

Development

Our team of engineers, scientists, and technicians bring the solution to whatever maturity level our customers want.

Mission Success

We are successful when our customers are successful. We work to deliver solutions that are sustainable over time.

Transition

We have a history of supporting fielded products developed at Draper either in a continual support/sustainment role or as a technology refresh partner. We provide technical knowledge and support to our customers when they are looking to transition to full-scale production or deployment.

Validation & Verification

Our digital engineering approach provides confidence that our systems meet requirements and specifications—and will work robustly and reliably.

We Partner with the Nation's Best

We work with universities, small businesses and start-ups, large companies, and government institutions to accomplish one goal: to develop and integrate technologies that achieve great strides in accuracy, efficiency, and utility.

Government

We have designed and supported deployed systems for the U.S. Navy, NASA, and other agencies over the last several decades.

Our capabilities include:

Performing open-architecture design for use by government designees;
Executing low-rate production, if needed.

Industry

We work with industry as a subcontractor, prime contractor, or teaming partner. We participate in SBIRs (Small Business Innovation Research) and STTRs (Small Business Technology Transfer) with small businesses and start-ups, as well as consortia, to help bring new technologies and providers into the federal supply chain.

Our capabilities include:

Customizing technology for customer needs;
Technology transfers for volume production.

Academia, Nonprofits and FFRDCs

We partner with fellow nonprofit organizations in applied research to advance technologies that solve problems for our customers and to help transfer technology to operational use through our engineering development expertise. These relationships can be one-on-one or through consortia.

Our capabilities include:

Collaboration on our internal research and development, and contract research and development work;
Joint proposals.

Draper Features

Explore All Featured Stories

Finding Novel Targets on the Fly: Using Advanced AI to Make Flexible Automatic Target Recognition Systems

Read Article

It’s a Marvelous Time for a Moon Landing

NASA CP-12 Award

Read Article

Catching Up to the Ship Passing in the Night

Propelling a craft through space faster and farther than ever before.

Read Article

When Up Is Down and Right Is Left

Addressing Spatial Disorientation in Pilots.

Read Article

How We're Inspiring New Leaders

From students to small businesses, we encourage our community to join one of our programs and take their ideas to new heights.

Startups and Small Businesses

We're thrilled to introduce DraperSPARX™^, a unique initiative aimed at bolstering national defense by integrating cutting-edge technology from small businesses and startups into the Department of Defense (DoD) and other U.S. government agencies.

Learn About DraperSPARX™

Graduate Students

The Draper Scholars Program allows postgraduate students to conduct research and apply it to real-world challenges in Space Systems, Biotechnology Systems, Electronic Systems, and Strategic Systems, under the guidance of a Draper supervisor and a supervisor from their university.

Learn About the Draper Scholars Program

Student Interns

Undergraduate and graduate students can gain hands-on experience in a world-class research and development organization through our programs for cooperative education (co-op) and internships, available in both engineering and non-engineering fields.

Learn About Student Opportunities

Service Members

To help active service members transition from military to civilian life, we provide full-time internship opportunities across multiple departments.

Learn About Service Member Opportunities

Step into the Future: Draper NXT

Whenever our nation looked to Draper for solutions, we delivered systems that shaped the future. In the coming 10 years, we will pioneer advancements in space exploration, electronics, biotechnology, and credible deterrence solutions, addressing challenges and opportunities in fields critical to national security.

Looking Forward to Our Future Missions and Innovations

We took a bold step 50 years ago to become an independent nonprofit company. This decision empowers us to continue to develop innovative solutions in the interest of the nation, whether that is to demonstrate technology, transition it to industry or build it ourselves, or to support and refresh deployed systems.

To make an even greater impact and enhance the nation’s well-being, we have embarked on a 10-year journey. We will grow our workforce, taking on more challenges and transforming our infrastructure to better support our innovators while driving agility and efficiency.

We will anticipate the future and its unknown challenges—filled with unlimited possibilities. Today, we take steps to gear up for the next 10 years and beyond.

We've Been Enabling Progress Since 1934

Since the beginning, The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory Inc. has been a critical hub for innovation. Doc Draper’s legacy has ensured 90 years of outstanding innovations and service to the nation and 50 years as an independent engineering innovation nonprofit. We’ve been at the forefront of academia and technology, entrusted as the go-to experts in our key business areas.

Explore Our Timeline of Past Accomplishments Read Our 50th Anniversary Book

Unparalleled Leadership Results in First-of-a-kind Engineering

Having accumulated decades of collective experience across a variety of fields, our leadership team is the source of our success.

View Executive Team View Board of Directors View Engineering Fellows