GoKawiilLast year, just before the Fourth of July holiday, the US Space Force officially took ownership of a new operating system for the GPS navigation network, raising hopes that one of the military’s most troubled space programs might finally bear fruit.
The GPS Next-Generation Operational Control System, or OCX, is designed for command and control of the military’s constellation of more than 30 GPS satellites. It consists of software to handle new signals and jam-resistant capabilities of the latest generation of GPS satellites, GPS III, which started launching in 2018. The ground segment also includes two master control stations and upgrades to ground monitoring stations around the world, among other hardware elements.
RTX Corporation, formerly known as Raytheon, won a Pentagon contract in 2010 to develop and deliver the control system. The program was supposed to be complete in 2016 at a cost of $3.7 billion. Today, the official cost for the ground system for the GPS III satellites stands at $7.6 billion. RTX is developing an OCX augmentation projected to cost more than $400 million to support a new series of GPS IIIF satellites set to begin launching next year, bringing the total effort to $8 billion.
Although RTX delivered OCX to the Space Force last July, the ground segment remains nonoperational. Nine months later, the Pentagon may soon call it quits on the program. Thomas Ainsworth, assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration, told Congress last week that OCX is still struggling.
Hopes dashed
The Space Force’s formal acceptance of the ground system from RTX last year marked a turning point for OCX after years of blunders. The handover allowed military teams to validate the new control software and upgraded ground facilities before declaring the system ready for operational service. But this testing uncovered more problems.