ARKA Danbury space lab in CT reveals $85M expansion amid big government contracts

The last thing Charlie Schaub needed was an earthquake, after overseeing some $85 million being poured into one of Connecticut's most secretive industrial facilities that produces delicate imaging systems for satellites and the U.S. military.

But after the April 5, 4.8 magnitude quake in New Jersey with aftershocks that gave Connecticut and the Northeast an intense rattling, Danbury Mission Technologies emerged with all systems go — including its newly expanded clean rooms for producing optical systems that must endure the stress of rocket launches and extended operation in space.

"It was quite a drill in terms of Danbury, because we have millions and millions and millions of dollars of the government's flight hardware and equipment in the building — which you worry about breaking," said Schaub, senior vice president of the company's space and defense business. "It was a busy day."

Known best as the birthplace for the Hubble Space Telescope's optical systems, Danbury Mission Technologies' facility totals more than 550,000 square feet of space, perched on a hill overlooking the city's airport and Danbury Fair Mall. Much of the latest round of investment went into building new clean rooms for the production of electro-optical and infrared telescopes, and other satellite systems and payloads.

The company is among more than 40 others providing systems for NASA's Artemis program to land astronauts on the moon. And Schaub said they anticipate additional orders from private corporations looking to launch low-earth-orbit satellites for any number of uses, from broadband Internet to mapping and weather imaging.

The plant also makes warning systems for military aircraft, alerting pilots if they are being targeted by laser guided shoulder-fired missiles and other weapons to give them time to take evasive action. Last August in a contract valued at $136 million, the U.S. Army ordered similar technology for M1 Abrams battle tanks, which are equipped with countermeasures to disrupt the targeting laser. 

In bays with ceilings as high as 50 feet, Schaub said the lab handles "cradle-to-grave" production of systems in Danbury, from engineering design to polishing the optical devices made there that have been blasted into space via hundreds of rocket launches over the years. The Danbury facility includes a massive vacuum chamber that can simulate the fluctuating temperatures and pressure that spacecraft encounter as they orbit the planet.

"In Danbury we have all the facilities to do that, for small systems like electronics to systems up to four or five meters in diameter — so bigger than the Hubble Telescope," Schaub said. "We have this really comprehensive and complete testing ability for both ground-based things that go on tanks and helicopters, and also things that sit in space for 15 or 20 years."

Started up by Perkin Elmer more than 60 years ago, the Danbury lab has had multiple owners over the years including an extended stretch under the umbrella of United Technologies. In 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice forced Raytheon to sell off Danbury Mission Technologies as a condition of UTC's merger with Raytheon to form the company known today as RTX.

Acquired in 2020 by Amergint based in Colorado, the combined company was folded into ARKA Group, whose backers include investment giant Blackstone. ARKA then adopted Danbury as its headquarters where it has about 550 employees today, of more than 900 in all. Schaub said the company regularly brings in interns and co-op students, with some staying on after graduation.

The Danbury Mission Technologies plant already had the third largest assessed value among industrial facilities in Danbury as of 2023. The only two ahead of it on the city's annual grand list was the Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals campus that straddles the Ridgefield line, and Entegris which makes materials and systems for the semiconductor industry and others at a facility on Commerce Road.