This new C-band 3 megawatt radar with a dish antenna has been installed on Kennedy Space Center.

This new C-band, 3 megawatt radar with a 50-foot dish antenna has recently been installed on north Kennedy Space Center. It is one of the largest of its kind in the world, providing higher definition imagery than has ever been available before. Working in concert with two new NASA-owned X-band radars mounted on the solid rocket booster retrieval ships, tracking the space shuttle and expendable launch vehicles with this new capability will provide more detail than NASA has ever observed by radar before. The first use of this C-band radar will be for the launch of the Atlas V rocket sending the New Horizons probe toward Pluto. The radar is operated under a NASA contract with the U.S. Navy who owns the radar.