Northrop Grumman Advances the Frontier of Sensing Technology for Space Domain Awareness

Estimated reading time: 1 minute

Northrop Grumman Corporation continues to advance the frontiers of sensing technology, successfully completing the Critical Design Review (CDR) and software demonstration for the U.S. Space Force’s (USSF) Deep-Space Advanced Radar Capability Program (DARC).

Key milestones completed within 12 months of contract award include:

• Preliminary Design Review
• Critical Design Review
• Initial software demonstration
• Northrop Grumman Advances the Frontier of Sensing Technology for Space Domain Awareness
• Artist Rendering (Credit: Northrop Grumman)

Expert:

“DARC will be the first to provide an all-weather, at all times capability in support of the space domain awareness mission that’s critical to national and global security,” said Pablo Pezzimenti, vice president, integrated national systems, Northrop Grumman. “The successful critical design review is demonstration of our ability to develop a complex, advanced system with agility and speed.”

Details:

Following the completion of CDR, the program now turns its focus to the Factory Acceptance Testing of key subsystems starting later this year.

Current ground-based optical systems only operate at night and are impacted by weather conditions. DARC will deliver an all-weather, 24/7 capability to monitor the rapidly evolving geosynchronous orbital environment – providing the nation with enhanced space domain awareness. DARC will augment the military’s space surveillance network as an additional sensor to monitor deep space objects, eventually providing full global coverage.