The U.S. Space Force has officially locked in the final geographical piece of its flagship, global deep-space tracking network. In a formal announcement issued by Space Systems Command, military leadership approved project planning and designated Lake Kickapoo, Texas, as the preferred location for the third and final installation of the Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability (DARC) network.
Executed as a central pillar of the trilateral AUKUS defense framework alongside the United Kingdom and Australia, the selection completes the operational footprint required to give allied forces an uninterrupted, 24/7/365 view of geostationary orbit, roughly 22,000 miles above the Earth surface. The network will provide persistent tracking of objects in the most valuable orbital regime, where military communications, missile warning, and commercial broadband satellites operate.
Selecting Texas as the preferred location for the final DARC site keeps us on track to deliver a truly global deep-space sensing network with our closest allies, stated Chief of Space Operations Gen. Douglas Schiess. This capability will improve visibility in our contested domain and reinforce our shared capacity to protect the space systems on which our nations rely.
The Global DARC Triad | Site Status and Timeline
Operating under a 22-year trilateral memorandum of understanding, the three-site architecture guarantees overlapping coverage across the entire geostationary belt. Site 1 in Western Australia completed construction in December 2024 and entered early-use operations in 2025. Site 2 in Pembrokeshire, Wales has been selected as the preferred U.K. site with civil approvals pending. Site 3 at Lake Kickapoo, Texas is the preferred U.S. site, with a construction contract targeted for 2027 and civil construction completion projected for 2029. Final operational acceptance across the full network is scheduled for 2030.
The choice of Lake Kickapoo, located in Archer County roughly 120 miles northwest of Fort Worth, is far from accidental. The location possesses a rich history in national defense telemetry, having previously hosted the main continuous-wave transmitter for the Navy and Air Force legacy AN/FPS-133 Space Surveillance System, popularly known as the original Space Fence, before its decommissioning in 2013. The site existing infrastructure and proven radio environment make it ideal for sensitive radar operations.
Why Radar Outperforms Telescopes in Deep Space
For decades, military commanders tracking objects in geostationary orbit relied heavily on ground-based optical systems like the Ground-based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance network. While effective under ideal conditions, optical sensors are inherently limited: they can only track satellites at night during clear weather windows. DARC fundamentally eliminates those operational blind spots. By deploying high-frequency, extremely sensitive radar arrays, the network penetrates cloud cover, rain, daylight, and atmospheric distortion.
Furthermore, DARC offers significantly higher tracking agility and resolution against small, fast-moving orbital debris or maneuvering inspector satellites deployed by strategic competitors. The persistent tracking data generated across all three nodes will be processed directly by Guardians assigned to Mission Delta 2 and the 20th Space Surveillance Squadron. With the U.S. government committing over $2 billion in program funding through 2031, the completion of the Lake Kickapoo installation will solidify a resilient, allied defense umbrella protecting critical military, communications, and commercial assets across deep space.
The DARC network represents a fundamental shift in how the U.S. and its allies approach space domain awareness. Where the previous generation of space surveillance relied on a patchwork of optical sensors with significant coverage gaps, DARC provides persistent, all-weather, high-resolution tracking that leaves no gap in the geostationary belt. This is particularly important as the number of satellites in GEO continues to grow, driven by both commercial demand for broadband constellations and military requirements for resilient communications. The broader infrastructure investments in Texas space capabilities complement the DARC site selection, positioning the state as an increasingly central hub for U.S. space operations.