$216M more, nothing built yet: Space Force pushes Northrop's UK deep-space radar contract to $495M

The money

The Aug. 24 action, announced in the Department of War’s Aug. 25 contract list, is modification P00018 to contract FA8820-24-C-B001 ^[1]. It is worth $215,934,576 and raises the contract’s cumulative face value to $495,375,991 from $279,441,415 ^[1]. The Space Systems Command Directorate of Contracting at Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado, is the contracting activity, and work runs in Colorado Springs through March 30, 2030 ^[1].

How much of the DARC Site 2 money is obligated?

Only $51,443,472 was obligated at award, all of it fiscal 2025 research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) funds ^[1]. That is about 24 percent of the modification. The rest of the $215.9 million is ceiling the Space Force can fund later.

The February step looked different. Modification P00009, announced Feb. 20, added $76,655,632 for long-lead hardware and vendor design support, lifting the contract to $279,441,415 from $202,785,783 ^[2]. “No funds are being obligated at the time of award,” that notice said ^[2]. Its completion date was Feb. 4, 2030 ^[2]; the August notice gives March 30, 2030 ^[1].

Taken together, the two modifications added $292.6 million in six months to a contract that stood at $202.8 million before the February action ^[1, 2]. Defense News described the original 2024 award as a $200 million contract ^[4].

Where does DARC money come from?

Neither notice names the appropriation behind the fiscal 2025 obligation ^[1, 2]. One fiscal 2025 account does name the radar. Section 20009 of Public Law 119-21, signed July 4, 2025, appropriated “$528,000,000 for DARC and SILENTBARKER military space situational awareness programs” for fiscal 2025, available until Sept. 30, 2029 ^[5]. SILENTBARKER is a separate program that shares that line ^[5].

The DARC line sits in a cluster of space items in the same section. Section 20009 also carries $3.65 billion for developing, buying, integrating and protecting U.S. military satellites, $1 billion for the X-37B spacecraft, $350 million for military space command and control systems, $150 million for ground moving target indicator satellites, $125 million for military space communications and $68 million for Space Force facilities ^[5]. Against that list, the $51.4 million obligated on Aug. 24 is a small draw; the law does not split the $528 million between DARC and SILENTBARKER ^[1, 5].

Defense News reported in August 2025 that the Space Force’s fiscal 2026 base budget request “does not include funding for DARC,” and that the service planned to use $281 million from the reconciliation bill for the radar instead ^[4]. Topline Report has tracked how much of the Pentagon’s space and missile defense money now depends on reconciliation rather than annual appropriations (earlier coverage).

The programs

What is DARC?

DARC is a ground-based radar network built to detect and track objects in geosynchronous orbit, from debris to hostile maneuvers near U.S. or allied satellites ^[4]. It is planned as three sites hosted and operated by the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom ^[3, 4]. Northrop says the radars will offer round-the-clock, all-weather coverage, unlike optical systems that work only at night and in clear weather ^[3].

Site 1, in Australia, began integration and testing in mid-2025. Defense News reported that it used seven of its planned 27 parabolic antennas to track multiple satellites in orbit, and that the system was slated to be fully operational by 2027 ^[4]. Kevin Giammo, Northrop’s director for space surveillance and environmental intelligence, said at the time that making the dishes work together creates “the equivalent of a very large radar with immense capabilities” ^[4].

What does the August modification buy?

The notice lists “pre-construction long-lead items, antenna hardware, antenna manufacturing, and pre-construction tasks for the DARC Site 2 radar” ^[1]. February’s money went to “transmitters, antennas, and receivers” plus vendor design support ^[2]. Across the two actions, the spending has moved from design and component orders toward building the antenna hardware itself.

The schedule has been long. Northrop announced the Site 2 award on Aug. 26, 2024 ^[3]; the first long-lead hardware modification came 18 months later, in February 2026 ^[2], and the antenna manufacturing tranche six months after that ^[1]. Northrop’s August 2024 release described Site 2 as following “the previous competitive award of DARC Site 1” ^[3]. In 2025 Defense News reported the company expected to reuse much of the Site 1 work but was defining design changes with the Space Force for the British radar ^[4]. “They’re fielding similar sites in different locations, so there’s always some uniqueness that will happen,” Giammo said ^[4].

For the supplier base, two points matter. The work location in both notices is Colorado Springs, so the near-term hardware orders run through Northrop’s Colorado Springs operation ^[1, 2]. Both actions are modifications to the same sole contract, FA8820-24-C-B001, rather than new competitions, so there is no separate solicitation for this tranche ^[1, 2].

The politics

DARC’s money has come by an unusual road. The program was written into Public Law 119-21 by name, alongside SILENTBARKER, in a section titled for improving the capabilities of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command ^[5]. Most of the section’s 32 items are Pacific exercises, airfields, infrastructure and networks; the space programs come near the end ^[5]. That placement gave the Space Force a multiyear pot outside the annual appropriations cycle, with four fiscal years to spend it ^[5].

With no DARC money in the fiscal 2026 base request, as Defense News reported, the radar’s recent funding has rested on that one reconciliation line rather than on a regular defense appropriations bill ^[4, 5]. For contractors, the practical point is timing: the money was appropriated in 2025 and does not expire until 2029 ^[5], so further DARC draws on that line do not depend on the fiscal 2027 appropriations calendar.

The harder dependency is abroad. In August 2025, Defense News reported that the Space Force was still working with the British government on environmental assessments and other processes required before construction could begin, and Giammo said completion of that work “will dictate” Northrop’s schedule for producing and delivering the radar ^[4]. “We 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,” he said ^[4].

The August notice is consistent with that approach: it funds hardware and antenna production that can proceed in Colorado while the work at the site itself stays in the pre-construction column ^[1]. Pablo Pezzimenti, a Northrop vice president, said when the Site 2 award was announced that the site “brings us closer to achieving global coverage of deep space” ^[3].

Next milestone

Fiscal 2025 money in the reconciliation line stays available until Sept. 30, 2029, and the contract’s work runs to March 30, 2030 ^[1, 5]. The nearest dates are on the budget side: fiscal 2027 starts Oct. 1, 2026. The Australian site was due to be fully operational in 2027, according to Defense News ^[4]. Neither contract notice says when construction at the British site will begin, or how much of the remaining $164.5 million in the August modification will be funded, or when ^[1].