PETERSON SPACE FORCE BASE, Colo. – Space surveillance experts at Northrop Grumman Corp. are moving forward with designing a second long-range radar system to detect, identify, and track satellites and other spacecraft in high-altitude geosynchronous orbits around Earth.
Officials of U.S. Space Force's Space Systems Command Directorate of Contracting at Peterson Space Force Base, Colo., announced a $76.7 million order last week to the Northrop Grumman Space Systems segment in Colorado Springs, Colo., to provide long-lead hardware for the Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability (DARC) site 2 in Wales in the Western United Kingdom. DARC site 2 should be completed in 2030.
DARC is to be one of the world’s most advanced radars for tracking objects in deep space. It is to monitor objects in geosynchronous orbit 22,000 miles above the equator continuously in all weather conditions.
First site in Australia
Northrop Grumman won a contract to build the first DARC site in 2021 in Western Australia. It was completed in December 2024, and should become operational next year. Long-lead items either are difficult and time-consuming to obtain, and are funded early in systems design process to keep overall production on schedule.
DARC will locate and track satellites in and on the way to geosynchronous orbit, and will replace or augment existing tools that lack the sensitivity and capacity to track them precisely. Legacy systems can be hindered by sunlight and weather.
DARC will provide an all-weather continuous monitoring of geosynchronous orbits. If a collision threatens a satellite, DARC alerts the operator in enough time to maneuver the satellite away from the oncoming debris. DARC also will identify enemy attempts to disrupt or deny civil and military space services.
DARC demonstration
A DARC demonstrator, which uses a sparse array of dish antennas to track objects in space, was tested at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., in late 2021. The test involved a sub-scale version of the DARC system to demonstrate its ability to broadcast a signal at specific test objects in space.
The future operational DARC system will consist of three high-powered transmit/receive sites, spaced at mid-latitudes in Australia, Wales, and the Continental U.S. The U.S. site location has not yet been selected, and is to be completed around 2032.
On this contract Northrop Grumman will do the work in Colorado Springs, Colo., and should be finished by February 2030. For more information contact Northrop Grumman Space Systems online at www.northropgrumman.com/who-we-are/business-sectors/space-systems, or U.S. Space Systems Command at www.ssc.spaceforce.mil/about-us/about-us.
