The site was first developed by the Naval Research Laboratory in the early 1960s as the site of a 600 ft radio telescope that would gather intelligence on Soviet radar and radio signals reflected from the moon and would gather radioastronomical data on outer space, but the project was halted in 1962 before the telescope construction was completed.[1] The site was then developed as a radio receiving station. The site was activated as "Naval Radio Station Sugar Grove" on May 10, 1969, and two Wullenweber Circulary Disposed Antenna Arrays (CDAAs) were completed on November 8, 1969. Numerous other antennas, dishes, domes, and other facilities were constructed in the following years. Some of the more significant radio telescopes on site are a 60 ft dish (oldest telescope on site), a 105 ft dish featuring a special waveguide receiver and a 150 ft dish (largest telescope on site).
Though the CDAAs were decommissioned in the 1990s, the site is still active, and photographs taken between 2000 and 2004 show significant construction on the site.
^ David K. van Keuren, "Cold War Science in Black and White: US Intelligence Gathering and Its Scientific Cover at the Naval Research Laboratory, 1948-62," Social Studies of Science, vol. 31, no. 2, Science in the Cold War, (2001): 207-229.
