Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Just last year Before the Fourth of July holiday US Space Force Officially took ownership of the new operating system for GPS navigation networkRaising hopes that one of the military’s most troubled space programs may finally come to fruition.
The Next Generation GPS Operational Control System, or OCX, is designed to command and control a military constellation of more than 30 GPS satellites. It consists of software to handle the new signals and anti-jamming capabilities of the latest generation of GPS satellites, GPS III, which went live in 2018. The ground segment also includes two main control stations and upgrades to ground monitoring stations around the world, among other hardware elements.
RTX, formerly known as Raytheon, won the Pentagon contract in 2010 to develop and deliver the control system. The program was supposed to be completed in 2016 at a cost of $3.7 billion. Today, the official cost of the ground system’s Global Positioning System (GPS III) satellites. It amounts to $7.6 billion. RTX is developing an OCX augmentation expected to cost more than $400 million to support a new series of GPS IIIF satellites scheduled to begin launching next year, bringing the total effort to $8 billion.
Although RTX delivered the OCX to the Space Force last July, the ground portion remains inoperable. Nine months later, the Pentagon may soon announce its withdrawal from 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 shattered
The Space Force’s formal acceptance of the RTX ground system last year marked a turning point for OCX after years of blunders. The delivery process allowed military teams to validate the new control software and upgrade ground facilities before declaring the system ready for operational service. But this test revealed more problems.
“As a result, more extensive and operationally significant testing using actual GPS satellites, ground antennas, and user equipment has led to an increase in the finding of widespread system issues across all subsystems, many of which remain unresolved,” Ainsworth told the House Subcommittee on Strategic Forces in prepared testimony.
“For more than 15 years, the program has faced significant technical challenges, schedule delays, and associated cost growth, jeopardizing the launch and capability of future GPS satellites,” Ainsworth continued.
Delays in the OCX program forced the Army to retool the decades-old GPS network control system to manage the GPS III satellites. Upgrades in 2020 allowed Space Forces to begin using a subset of new capabilities enabled by “M-code” GPS signals designed for warfare.
Military signals are especially important now to combat GPS jamming and spoofing around war zones in Ukraine and the Middle East. M-code is more resistant to jamming, and its encryption makes it more difficult to spoof, a type of attack that makes recipients trust fake navigation signals rather than real ones. The upgrade also allows the Army to deny an adversary’s access to GPS during conflict, while maintaining the ability of U.S. and allied forces to use the M code to gain an advantage.
Military officials previously believed they needed to run OCX to fully exploit M-code signals on nearly 700 types of weapon systems such as aircraft, ships, ground vehicles, and missiles.
Because of its civilian and military importance, the GPS network is an “attractive target for adversaries,” said Lt. Gen. Doug Chase, Space Force deputy chief of operations. “Jamming (signal rejection) and spoofing (false signals) are a current and growing threat to GPS. We are working to modernize GPS to mitigate these threats.”
But the main part of the update process is still plagued with problems. Ainsworth told lawmakers that continuing to update the existing GPS ground control system “is now a viable option as systemic issues with OCX continue.”