Ramona Adams
A General Dynamics subsidiary has completed its work to construct a 7,000 square-foot ground structure for a radar system that Lockheed Martin is currently building on a Pacific Ocean island for the U.S. Air Force.
General Dynamics SATCOM Technologies said Thursday it will ship the 700,000-pound steel radar receive array to Kwajalein Atoll in Marshall Islands to be reassembled and integrated into the Air Force’s space fence system.
Prime contractor Lockheed was chosen for the Air Force’s $914 million Space Fence program in June 2014 and subsequently announced General Dynamics SATCOM Technologies as a subcontractor two months post-award.
Mike DiBiase, a vice president and general manager for General Dynamics’ mission systems unit, said the array is designed to locate, identify and track objects as small as a softball hundreds of miles above the Earth’s surface.
General Dynamics SATCOM Technologies built the ground radar array structure at a manufacturing facility in Wortham, Texas.
Space Fence will work to support the Air Force’s efforts to protect commercial and government space-based assets from more than 100,000 orbiting objects.
