GAKONA, Alaska — Alaskan Command (ALCOM), in collaboration with U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM), the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC), and the MITRE Corporation, completed a series of live-fly over-the-horizon radar (OTHR) flight trials utilizing the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) transmitter array.
Conducted from September 7 to 11, 2026, the live-fly events served as the culmination of a three-year Arctic Air Domain Awareness experiment series. The operational architecture repurposed the University of Alaska Fairbanks-operated HAARP facility in Gakona—comprising 180 crossed-dipole antennas capable of delivering 3.6 megawatts of high-frequency (HF) radio energy into the ionosphere—as a high-power bistatic radar illuminator. The transmitted HF signals bounced off the upper ionosphere back toward Earth, illuminating targets across Alaska’s maritime approaches over the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea. Echoes were gathered by a specialized, low-cost receiver array arrayed at Cold Bay on the Alaska Peninsula, developed by MITRE. Cooperative targets included USAF E-3 Sentry AWACS, HC-130J Combat King II, and KC-135 Stratotanker platforms to benchmark skywave OTHR target track correlation against actual GPS coordinates.
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS: HAARP / MITRE BISTATIC OVER-THE-HORIZON RADAR (OTHR) ARCHITECTURE 
* Program Lead & Operational Partners: Alaskan Command (ALCOM), USNORTHCOM, AFRL, DRDC (Canada), and The MITRE Corporation
* Primary Transmitter Node (Illuminator): HAARP Ionospheric Research Instrument (Gakona, AK)
* Array Footprint: 33 acres (14 hectares) phased array / 180 crossed-dipole antennas (15×12 grid)
* Operational Power Output: 3.6 MW total transmitter power (Effective Radiated Power – ERP up to ~5.1 GW)
* Frequency Band: High Frequency (HF) spectrum (2.8 MHz – 10.0 MHz)
* Primary Receiver Node (Bistatic Sensor Array): MITRE Low-Cost HF Receiver Array (Cold Bay, AK)
* Architecture: Software-defined radio (SDR) receiver network processing bistatic skywave returns
* Coverage Zone: Over-the-Horizon (OTH) detection across the Gulf of Alaska, Bering Sea, and Arctic maritime approaches
* Target Tracking & Calibration Matrix:
* Cooperative Platforms: E-3 Sentry (962nd AACS), HC-130J (211th RQS), and KC-135 (168th ARW)
* Processing Modality: Ionospheric refraction modeling paired with real-time target track correlation against cooperative GPS/ADS-B telemetry
* Operational Objective: Mitigate curvature-of-the-Earth line-of-sight constraints to detect long-range airborne threats (bombers, cruise missiles, ISR platforms) inside the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ)
TIMES OF DEFENCE ASSESSMENT:
The successful demonstration of a bistatic Over-the-Horizon Radar using HAARP as an illuminator marks a major low-cost, high-yield evolution for NORAD’s Arctic air domain awareness architecture. Standard land-based microwave radars are constrained by radar horizon limits (~30–40 nautical miles for low-altitude air targets), leaving significant surveillance blind spots across the expansive Alaskan and Arctic maritime approaches.
By leveraging HAARP’s 3.6 MW HF phased array to bounce skywave signals off the ionosphere down to remote sea vectors, the U.S. military creates a wide-area surveillance capability capable of detecting Russian strategic bombers and long-range cruise missiles hundreds of miles beyond conventional line of sight. Coupling a central high-power transmitter with small, low-cost passive receiver fields (such as MITRE’s Cold Bay array) delivers a highly survivable and cost-effective sensor grid that directly complements Canada’s upcoming NORAD modernization OTHR deployments.
