WASHINGTON — Northrop Grumman’s first test of the Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability (DARC) confirmed the ability of the multi-antenna radar to track multiple satellites, according to a senior company official.
“We’re very pleased to be able to make this an announcement of the success of this first-time demonstration at the DARC site in Western Australia,” Kevin Giammo, director of Northrop’s space surveillance and environmental intelligence organization, told Breaking Defense.
The test, announced Aug. 12, involved seven of the planned 27 parabolic dish antennas making up the DARC system and proved that the concept of making “multiple antennas work together kind of like a single, larger antenna” actually works.
“[W]e’ve tracked multiple satellites doing that. And this is really an important milestone,” Giammo added.
A Northrop Grumman spokesperson explained that the test was part of an ongoing series, stating, “We’re in the midst of an ongoing integration and test phase and this specific demo is a part of a multi-week campaign.”
Northrop won a $341 million Space Force contract [PDF] to build the first DARC array in February 2022 to track satellites, including threatening adversary spacecraft, and space junk in geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO) some 36,000 km (22,236 miles) from Earth.
One of the key attributes of the DARC system is that it will be able to detect and track space objects even in daylight, unlike traditional ground-based radar. Giammo said that DARC also will allow improved tracking over a wider field of view.
“We’re going to provide unmatched, high-precision radar tracking for the deep space space domain awareness mission,” he said. “And really what this gives us is higher accuracy, higher sensitivity, more capacity to track objects in space, and a lot of agility as we do this tracking.”
Giammo stressed that Northrop Grumman sees DARC as an asset that could contribute to the Trump administration’s ambitious, if still embryonic, plan to create an air and missile defense shield over America.
“DARC is one of those systems that that really matches well with Golden Dome,” he said. “DARC can be like a lookout for the lookouts … those important systems, like missile warning assets in geosynchronous orbit.”
The Space Force’s original plan for DARC was to have three sites around the world: one based in the Indo-Pacific, one in Europe and one in the continental United States.
The United States, Australia and the United Kingdom signed a memorandum of understanding in September 2023 pledging their commitment to working together on DARC for the next 22 years. And in August 2024, Northrop won a contract worth about $200 million to develop a second DARC array in Pembroke, Wales.
In a Feb. 20 press release, the US Space Force’s Space Systems Command (SSC) said that the American site would be chosen “pending the completion of environmental and air space studies.”
However, in March SSC Commander Gen. Stephen Purdy said DARC was now in the cross-hairs as one of the service’s “slow, … traditional, expensive,” acquisition programs that might be better accomplished through a pivot to commercial providers.
“We’re proceeding with DARC, although I’m going to look at: ‘Hey, are there commercial solutions at DARC? Any one of them?’ We’re looking to ask the question. We may or may not find anything,” Purdy said.
DARC has been plagued with delays almost since its inception, according to a series of annual studies by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
The latest report, covering activities from May 2024 through June 2025, shows that initial operating capability (IOC) for the Australian site has been repeatedly delayed. The Space Force in 2023 had slated IOC for September 2025, in 2024 pushed it back to February 2026, and the current projection is for January 2027, the report said.
“Program officials acknowledged that Site 1 delays have caused cascading delays to the construction of Sites 2 and 3. For instance, the program delayed Site 2 construction start by 9 months to April 2027 and deferred operational acceptance by 13 months to November 2029. Similarly, for Site 3, the program postponed both construction start and operational acceptance by 26 months, to September 2029 and January 2032, respectively,” GAO noted.
“According to these officials, the Site 2 and Site 3 delays are further compounded by anticipated future decreases in program funding and cost growth on Site 1,” it added.
Space Systems Command did not respond by press time to an inquiry from Breaking Defense as to the current schedule and the status of the commercial alternatives review.
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Author: Theresa Hitchens
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