{"id":70324,"date":"2025-08-15T13:41:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T13:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/70324\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T13:41:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T13:41:09","slug":"deep-space-radar-hits-key-testing-milestone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/70324\/","title":{"rendered":"Deep-space radar hits key testing milestone"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Space Force\u2019s deep-space radar hit a testing milestone in recent weeks, using seven of its antennas to track multiple satellites in orbit from a site in Australia.<\/p>\n

The Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability, or DARC, is being built by Northrop Grumman<\/a> to detect and track activity in geosynchronous orbit \u2014 from space debris to hostile movement that could harm U.S. or allied satellites. <\/p>\n

The ground-based system is slated to be fully operational by 2027 and is the first of three radars the service is building as part of a partnership with Australia and the United Kingdom to improve their visibility into what\u2019s happening on orbit<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The recent demonstration was part of DARC\u2019s integration and testing phase, which started in the last few weeks. The radar will ultimately use 27 parabolic antennas for its deep-space tracks. Kevin Giammo, Northrop\u2019s director for space surveillance and environmental intelligence, told Defense News the ability to use a subset of those shows that the company\u2019s design is solid and ready to scale.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach of those parabolic dishes have a certain amount of capability on their own, but as you are able to make these dishes work together as a set of arrays, what you\u2019re really doing is you are creating the equivalent of a very large radar with immense capabilities,\u201d Giammo said.<\/p>\n

As the program moves through its test campaign, it will continue to increase the number of antennas it\u2019s using, making its observations more accurate and persistent. <\/p>\n

In parallel to its development of the first DARC radar, Northrop is also beginning work on the second system, which will be based in the United Kingdom. The company received a $200 million contract for DARC 2 last year. <\/p>\n

The Space Force is currently working with the U.K. government on the environmental assessments and other processes that have to occur before they can begin building on the site. Giammo said the completion of that work will dictate Northrop\u2019s schedule for producing and delivering the radar. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe certainly will be working to optimize when different aspects of the activity are executed based on how things are progressing with that government-to-government coordination,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of work that we\u2019re already doing, but there\u2019s certainly more that\u2019s to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

Northrop will be able to take advantage of much of the work it\u2019s done on the first radar as it starts to build the second \u2014 and eventually the third \u2014 system. Giammo noted there may be some design differences between the systems, and the company is working with the Space Force to define what changes are needed for the U.K. radar<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re fielding similar sites in different locations, so there\u2019s always some uniqueness that will happen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Space Force\u2019s fiscal 2026 base budget request does not include funding for DARC, though the service has said it plans to use $281 million from Congress\u2019 $150 billion reconciliation bill<\/a> for the effort. <\/p>\n

Courtney Albon is C4ISRNET\u2019s space and emerging technology reporter. She has covered the U.S. military since 2012, with a focus on the Air Force and Space Force. She has reported on some of the Defense Department\u2019s most significant acquisition, budget and policy challenges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Space Force\u2019s deep-space radar hit a testing milestone in recent weeks, using seven of its antennas to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70325,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,63,33264,33263,55411,55410,33265,33258,28582,285,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-70324","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-circulated-c4isrnet","11":"tag-circulated-defense-news","12":"tag-darc","13":"tag-deep-space-advanced-radar-capability","14":"tag-defense-news","15":"tag-dn-dnr","16":"tag-northrop-grumman","17":"tag-space","18":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}