Raytheon will get between $300 million and $309.5 million to rebuild the electronics of eight strategic radars that watch for ballistic missiles and track objects in orbit. The RTX subsidiary announced on October 15, 2026 that it had been selected for the US Space Force’s Ground-Based Radar Digitization program, known as GBRD.
Two other firms share the work. SciTec Innovations received $93.7 million and WildStar $20.2 million, which brings total contractor allocations to between $413.9 million and $423.4 million. Space Systems Command and the Missile Defense Agency jointly manage the program.
Eight radars, four families
The radars sit at six US installations, one in Greenland and one in the United Kingdom. Five are Upgraded Early Warning Radars: at Beale Air Force Base in California, Clear Space Force Station in Alaska, Cape Cod Space Force Station in Massachusetts, RAF Fylingdales in the UK and Pituffik Space Base in Greenland. These are large fixed phased arrays working in the UHF band. Fylingdales uses three antenna faces to cover 360 degrees.
The other three are different machines. The Perimeter Acquisition Radar Attack Characterization System, or PARCS, stands at Cavalier Space Force Station in North Dakota. Cobra Dane, an L-band AN/FPS-108 on Shemya Island, Alaska, points toward the northern Pacific. Its 29-meter antenna holds 15,360 radiating elements. At Eglin Site C-6 in Florida sits the AN/FPS-85, a UHF phased array originally built for space surveillance.
That variety is the engineering problem. A common processing design has to work across UHF and L-band systems, different antenna layouts and different transmitter technologies. PARCS and Cobra Dane add a complication: their traveling-wave-tube transmitters make front-end replacement harder and raise the chance of downtime.
Keep the antennas, replace the electronics
The program swaps aging analog electronics for digital receivers and keeps existing antenna structures, buildings and networks. It also sets up a government-owned Common Architecture Baseline built on Modular Open Systems Architecture principles, so different contractors can maintain or upgrade the equipment. Commercial off-the-shelf processors are preferred to cut reliance on obsolete parts.
The aims are longer detection range, more simultaneous tracking, better object classification, stronger resistance to electromagnetic interference and shorter processing delays. Faster trajectory updates could give missile defense more time for threat assessment and interceptor planning, and PARCS is meant to gain a missile defense tracking mission.
Space is part of the case. Active satellites grew from roughly 2,000 in 2019 to 10,200 by mid-2025, a 410% rise, and the cataloged orbital population exceeded 35,000 objects. A satellite at 400 km altitude travels at roughly 7.8 km/s and circles the Earth in about 93 minutes, so tracks need frequent refreshing. The upgraded radars will keep feeding the US Space Surveillance Network alongside Space Fence, optical telescopes and space-based sensors.
The GBRD will not by itself establish hostile intent or watch every orbital region continuously.
Schedule
Space Systems Command issued a Request for Prototype Proposal on April 15, 2026, using the Middle Tier of Acquisition rapid-prototyping route. Prototype installation is limited to no more than four sites, potentially two Upgraded Early Warning Radar installations, PARCS and Cobra Dane. The remaining three early warning radars and Eglin would follow in a rapid-fielding phase. Four operational prototypes are targeted for the first quarter of fiscal 2030, with full operational capability planned for the second quarter of fiscal 2031.
