Aerospace and Defense

Military GPS Receiver Advances Could Help Trim Satellite Costs

Military GPS Receiver Advances Could Help Trim Satellite Costs

Advanced military receivers using the sort of modern multi-channel, multi-constellation capabilities already available commercially, could enable the Air Force to focus its anti-jam efforts on the ground, simplifying future GPS satellites and lowering their cost. Moreover, experts told Inside GNSS, the cutting-edge receivers could be deployed years before the anti-jam capability planned for the new GPS III satellites would be fully available.

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By Dee Ann Divis
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Inter-Signal Correction Sensitivity Analysis

Modernized GPS satellites give civil users the ability to achieve dual L1/L2 PY accuracy using dual L1CA/L2C ionosphere-free measurements and, with IIF satellites, dual L1/L5 signals. Because broadcast GPS ephemeris data is based on an ionosphere-free pseudorange calculated from dual L1PY/L2PY measurements and the civil signals are not all perfectly aligned to it, new broadcast parameters and a new modernized dual-frequency algorithm are needed in order to align new signals with the dual L1/L2 PY signal.

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By Inside GNSS
Listening for RF Noise

Listening for RF Noise

GNSS signals are vulnerable to interference due to being extremely weak when received on Earth’s surface. Therefore, even a low-power interference signal can easily disrupt the operation of commercial GNSS receivers within a range of several kilometers.

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By Inside GNSS
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Senate Kills GPS OCX Funding Due to Cost Overruns — Now $5.3 Billion and Rising
May 17, 2016

Senate Kills GPS OCX Funding Due to Cost Overruns — Now $5.3 Billion and Rising

The Senate Armed Services Committee zeroed out the Pentagon’s $393 funding request for the new GPS ground control system during its May 11 markup, asserting that the program’s cost overruns — with a total cost that may reach $5.3 billion, up from an original $1.5 billion — had breached the Nunn-McCurdy Act.

Under the act, such a breach could result in termination of the Next Generation Operational Control System or OCX unless the Secretary of Defense goes through an in-depth review of the program and personally certifies its critical importance.

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By Inside GNSS
SMC Announces Feasibility Assessment Contracts for Next Round of GPS III Satellite Competition
May 6, 2016

SMC Announces Feasibility Assessment Contracts for Next Round of GPS III Satellite Competition

The USAF Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) announced today (May 5, 2016) the award of three contracts to support companies in preparing for the competition to build additional GPS Block III space vehicles (SVs).

The SMC’s GPS Directorate at Los Angeles Air Force Base, California, will award one GPS III Phase 1 Production Readiness Feasibility Assessment contract to each of the following companies: Boeing Network and Space Systems, Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, and Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems.

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By Inside GNSS
SpaceX Snares GPS III Launch Services Contract
April 27, 2016

SpaceX Snares GPS III Launch Services Contract

The Air Force announced today (April 27, 2016) the award to Space Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) of an $82.7-million contract for GPS III Launch Services.

The Air Force characterized the contract as “the first competitively sourced National Security Space (NSS) launch services contract in more than a decade.” However, a decision last November by the United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed, not to compete for this GPS III launch effectively left SpaceX as the only bidder.

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By Inside GNSS
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Galileo & EGNOS Evolution
March 27, 2016

Galileo & EGNOS Evolution

A global navigation satellite system seems like such solid thing, like the pyramids, perhaps, or a mountain. Permanent, fixed, immutable.

Nor is this surprising. After all, GNSS distinguishes itself from many other technologies of the moment by its grounding in a large and widespread infrastructure: a master control station, launch facilities, far-flung monitoring stations, the space segment with dozens of massive satellites that can operate 20 years or more as did a recently retired GPS Block IIA spacecraft.

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By Günter W. Hein
Air Force Considers Shifting GPS III Ground Control to Enterprise Ground Services
March 16, 2016

Air Force Considers Shifting GPS III Ground Control to Enterprise Ground Services

As the contractor for the new GPS ground system works its way through a make-or-break 90-day evaluation period, the U.S. Air Force (USAF) is weighing whether it should look at leapfrogging past that program and shifting control of the newest GPS satellites to a new common ground system for Air Force space assets.

The Next-Generation Operational Control System or OCX, currently under development by Raytheon, is essential to integrating the GPS III satellites into the U.S. GNSS constellation and operating them at their full potential.

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By Inside GNSS
U.S. Administration, Congress Continue to Underfund Civil GPS Signal Monitoring
February 29, 2016

U.S. Administration, Congress Continue to Underfund Civil GPS Signal Monitoring

The civil GPS community is facing a significant federal funding cut in the midst of programmatic shifts and political squalls that make the long-term outlook murkier than usual.

President Obama’s recently released 2017 budget proposal calls for $847.362 million in Department of Defense (DoD) funds but only $10 million in Department of Transportation (DoT) funds to sustain and modernize the civil GPS services, including monitoring of civil GPS signals.

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By Inside GNSS
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