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Launch of ULA's Magellan Delta IV GPS III mission
WASHINGTON: The launch today of the second Air Force GPS III satellite, called Magellan, is a welcome endorsement for Lockheed Martin, owner and ground-based control system provider, Raytheon, after years. delays and cost overruns. troubled, the GPS III program is now progressing relatively well.
Indeed, during a pre-launch teleconference on Tuesday with reporters, the Air Force GPS III mission team, led by the Space and Missile Systems Center ( SMC), stated that the program "was in good condition". According to SMC, "GPS III SV02 is the latest generation of GPS satellites designed and built to provide positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) information with three times the accuracy and eight times the anti-jam capability of his predecessor. "
"I'm very, very happy," said Bill Sullivan, Program Manager for Raytheon's Next Generation Operational Control (OCX) Segment, who has been the providential child of space-grabbing. "From where we were in 2015, I am very happy with our current situation."
To break Readers are aware of the long history of OCX's difficulties, including a Nunn-McCurdy breach in mid-2016, which meant that the program had surpassed its costs by more than 25% and needed to be re-authorized by Congress. But the program continued, partly because the air force simply could not afford to pay bail.
Sullivan says that since September 2017, when Raytheon delivered OCX Block 0 – also known as the Launch and Control System (LCS) – to Lockheed Martin and the Air Force, "we met our costs." Lockheed Martin and the Air Force use the OCX 0 / LCS block portion of the OCX system to control and control the GPS III satellites at launch and until launch validation.
According to SMC, the OCX has passed its satellite integration tests before launch. "The success of these tests, guided and monitored by SMC, has given a high level of confidence in the satellite's ability to survive in the launch environment, to reach its operational orbit and to fulfill its mission," he said. SMC in a press release.
When it is delivered in 2021, the full OCX system will enable enhanced anti-lock communications (uplink and telemetry information uplinks) for the fleet as a whole. of 10 GPS III satellites and the 22 GPS III Next. "On satellites," said Sullivan.
He noted that, even though Raytheon used a portion of the margin in the contract, it was "at a rate comparable to what we had estimated – in other words, we used a margin (time / cost) but we have a few left. so we do not burn hot. "
With the launch of the second GPS III satellite, Raytheon's OCX Block 0 / LCS will not only repeat the same performance, it will also show that it can handle multiple satellites at once. The first GPS III satellite, launched at the end of December 2018, is not yet operational. As a result, the OCX system is currently being used by Lockheed Martin and the Air Force for command and control (C2). Now, with two pre-operational birds in orbit, the system controls both.
Likewise, Lockheed Martin is now on track for on-time delivery, budget and launch of the future GPS III satellites, after years of delays and programmatic restructuring since the original 2008 contract. the launch of the first GPS III (called SV01, or Vespucci) was more than four years late.
Johnathon Caldwell, vice president of Lockheed Martin for Navigation Systems, told me yesterday that the launch today, although slightly delayed due to the problems faced by ULA with a supplier of parts for his Delta IV rocket, "validates our overall" back to basics "plan, and" reflects how well this program has arrived. "
The third satellite of the series is ready to be launched next January; the fourth is about to be declared ready to be launched (with launch date set but not yet announced by the Air Force). Caldwell noted that the GPS III production line is "running at a fast pace right now," with "ground vehicles" across the ninth satellite (SV09).
In addition, the Vespucci GPS III SV-01 should be declared operational by the Air Force before the end of the year, according to Caldwell. This operational status will be made possible in part by the Lockheed Martin – OCS Operational Control System, not to be confused with the upgraded Raytheon OCX software. Called GPS III (Contingency Operations), it has been developed to allow the existing system (even more confusing called the Operational Control System of the GPS Architecture Evolution Plan or AEP OCS) used by all previous versions of GPS satellites to support the new GPS III. configuration. There are currently 31 operational GPS satellites dating from the late 1990s: 1 block IIA; Block IIR; Block IIR-M; and 12 block IIF.
The GPS III satellites are equipped with the coded M code, anti-blocking and anti-spoofing (M-Code), originally installed in the GPS IIRM and launched for the first time in 2005. Just as important – at least for civilian users and allies – is the new L1-C signal that allows interoperability with the European Galileo constellation, the Japanese Quazi-Zenith satellite system (QZSS) and (in principle) all future PNT satellite networks. The new signal will not only provide greater accuracy, but also greater availability, which will allow your smartphone to connect to Google Maps even when it's stuck in urban canyons where your phone is struggling to get a line of sight to the GPS satellites.
The new GPS III signaling capability was at the origin of Raytheon's enhanced OCX program. However, given the difficulties with OCX, the Air Force decided to protect itself by contracting Lockheed Martin in 2016 to develop a software upgrade of the old operating system. The COps software upgrade was delivered to the Air Force in June.
Caldwell explained that Lockheed Martin's OCS maintenance activities include a fairly large master contract with various software upgrades. "Few people know that Lockheed Martin has more than 30 years of experience in building the satellites that make up the GPS, but also in working side by side. [with the Air Force] on the Earth system … used to fly the satellites, "he said ironically.
For example, according to the company's website, the Air Force in December 2018 "awarded Lockheed Martin the contract to maintain the GPS II Control System (GCS II) in order to further modernize and sustain 'AEP OCS until 2025'.
Yes, 2025 – beyond the date that Raytheon's OCX is supposed to be operational. Caldwell explained that the GPS operating system is "not a monolithic capability; a set of abilities. Some of the upgrades recently put in place by Lockheed Martin, and others still underway, "will survive the transition from OCS to OCX," he said.
Another critical software upgrade underway in the 2018 contract is the update of the receivers, built by Lockheed Martin, in the Air Force GPS ground control stations. According to the company's website, "By 2020, the OCS AEP should receive the MCEU upgrade (M-Code Early Use), which will allow M-Code control, a new advanced signal designed to improve the technology." 39; anti-jamming and -spoofing, as well as to increase secure access to military GPS signals for US and Allied armed forces. "
Meanwhile, the DoD still struggles to integrate M-Code with the different mobile GPS receivers used by more than 700 weapons systems on the ground, from army tanks to Air Force combat aircraft. Raytheon, Rockwell Collins and L3 Harris have signed contracts for the construction of M-code hardware (called receiver cards) and software for service platforms.
In December 2017, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report that, although the DoD "had made progress in the initial tests of the receiver cards needed to use the M-code signal," additional developments were needed. The GAO said that "the preliminary estimate for the integration and testing of a fraction of the weapon systems requiring card receivers would rise to more than 2.5 billion by the end of fiscal year 2021, of which only 28 fully and 72 partially funded. "He also warned that the costs would increase by" Billions of dollars when weapons systems not yet funded are included. "
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