A team led by Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company has won U. S. Air Force approval to build the GPS Block IIIA satellites under a contract valued at up to $3.568 billion.

The long-delayed decision was announced May 15. The acquisition covers the first of three sets of Block III satellites currently scheduled to begin launching in 2014.

A team led by Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company has won U. S. Air Force approval to build the GPS Block IIIA satellites under a contract valued at up to $3.568 billion.

The long-delayed decision was announced May 15. The acquisition covers the first of three sets of Block III satellites currently scheduled to begin launching in 2014.

Lockheed’s immediate award is for $1,463,969,301 to build two research & development satellites, with an additional five options of two space vehicles (SVs) each, for a possible total of 12 SVs. However, the Air Force only expects to purchase a total of eight IIIA satellites, including the fully operational R&D spacecraft.

Another 8 satellites would be delivered under the GPS IIIB phase, to be awarded about three years from now, and a final 16 GPS IIICs later on.

The GPS IIIB will feature a cross-linked command and control architecture, enabling these SVs to be updated from a single ground station instead of waiting for each satellite to orbit in view of a ground antenna. GPS IIIC will fly a high-powered spot beam that can deliver greater M-code signal power — about 100 times that of current satellites — for increased resistance to hostile jamming.

The Air Force retains the right to re-compete either or both of the next two Block III acquisitions, in case of poor IIIA performance or because of needs to secure the industrial base for future space developments. However, Col. Dave Madden, commander of the GPS Wing at the Space & Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base, says, “Our primary intent is to develop a long-term relationship with one vendor.”

For GPS IIIA, Lockheed Martin’s program management and spacecraft development effort will occur at its facilities in Newtown, Pennsylvania, with final assembly, integration, and test located in Denver. The company’s Sunnyvale, California, operations will provide various spacecraft components and a launch support team will be based at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Lockheed Martin’s A2100 bus will serve as the GPS III spacecraft platform. The contract will result in approximately 500 new jobs for Lockheed Martin, according to the company.

ITT, Clifton, based in Clifton, New Jersey, will provide the navigation payload, and General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, Gilbert, Arizona, will provide the network communications element, which includes the UHF crosslink and tracking, telemetry, and command (TT&C) subsystems.

In a press conference announcing the award, Gen. Robert Kehler, who heads the Air Force Space Command, identified three primary objectives for the Block IIIs: increased resistance to jamming, more civil signals (the L1C, compatible with Europe’s Galileo GNSS Open Service), and “introduction of a better platform for [GPS] growth potential.”

The latter point refers to risk-reduction elements in the contract and the capability insertion program (CIP) that will enable to the Air Force to adjust acquisition plans depending on evolving warfighter needs and “demonstrated technology maturity.”

Eventually, the modernization effort will improve standalone GPS positioning to less than a meter in accuracy, compared to about three meters with today’s constellation. That won’t arrive, however, until about 2019 when 18 GPS III satellites are expected to be in orbit.

Lockheed beat out a team led by Boeing Company for the IIIA contract. Boeing currently is working to get the first of its Block IIF satellites through final tests in time for a launch early next year.

Madden said that both teams “had awardable proposals.” The GPS Wing reviewed five years of past performance by both companies on about 20 contracts “relevant to this source selection,” not just GPS work, he added.

Asked who made the ultimate decision on the contract award, Madden said only that it was the “source selection authority — and that wasn’t me.” He added that “as a matter of policy” the Air Force doesn’t release the name of that person, although sources close to the acquisition process indicated that the decision probably went all the way up to Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne.

The GPS III program has been almost 10 years in the making. First proposed in 1998 during the Clinton administration and receiving its first congressional funding in 2000, the program has repeatedly been delayed as the GPS III line item was cut from either federal or Air Force budgets, including as recently as last year.

On May 21 Boeing announced that it plans to lay off approximately 750 employees in southern California because of a downturn in its satellite assembly and integration business. The reductions are primarily in the area of engineering and will mostly affect workers in El Segundo and Seal Beach.

Boeing will apparently not protest the U.S. Air Force GPS III decision or file a protest against the contract award.  On May 22, U.S. Air Force program managers briefed Boeing leadership regarding the reasons for the contract decision. According to the company, the GPS III award decision will not affect Boeing’s role on existing military satellite programs, nor will it affect work that is already under contract with the Air Force on various space and ground segments of the GPS program. The Boeing Space & Intelligence Systems will continue its efforts to win new satellite business.

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GPS manufacturers and users who employ so-called codeless and semi-codeless techniques based on exploiting the L2 carrier phase of the military P(Y)-code signals may want to comment on a new proposal to ensure that capability through 2020.

Developed under the auspices of the National Executive Committee for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT), the plan would commit the Department of Defense (DoD), as the operator of GPS, to continue enabling codeless/semi-codeless GPS access until December 31, 2020. At that time, a full complement of new civil signals — L2C and L5 signals — should be available on 24 or more modernized GPS satellites.

GPS transmits encrypted signals known as Y-code or P(Y)-code at the L1 and L2 frequencies. Although the Y-code is primarily intended for U.S. and allied military use, the civilian community has developed techniques to exploit the Y-code signal — particularly at the L2 band (1227 MHz) — to achieve significant accuracy gains. Many commercial GPS receivers have incorporated these techniques.

A request for public comment on the plan is scheduled for publication in the Federal Register on May 16, with a June 16 deadline for responses. The notice is also available on the website of the Department of Commerce’s Office of Space Commercialization.

The notice states that the U.S. government acknowledges the global use of GPS codeless and semi-codeless techniques and plans to maintain the existing GPS L1 Y-code and L2 Y-code signal characteristics — such as the received minimum RF signal strength — until such time that an alternative capability exists to replace it.

The PNT National Executive Committee proposes December 31, 2020, as the target date for completing transition of the installed base of codeless/semi-codeless GPS equipment to next-generation capabilities. This date is based upon the current launch schedule for the GPS program, which expects to have 24 GPS satellites transmitting the L2C signal to users by 2016, and 24 GPS satellites transmitting L5 by 2018. The civil L5 signal is included on the GPS IIF generation of satellites with the first launch scheduled in 2009.

The L1C signal would first appear on the Block GPS III spacecraft, now expected to launch beginning in 2014. The GPS Interface Control Working Group will meet in El Segundo, California, on May 22–23 to discuss the draft L1C and L5 interface specifications. Those publications and proposed changes can be found on the Los Angeles AFB website.

The 2020 codeless/semicodeless transition date is also based on preliminary discussions that the Office of Space Commercialization has held with GPS equipment manufacturers, who indicated that a transition period of approximately 10 years should be long enough to allow GPS users to upgrade to L2C- and L5-capable receivers as part of their normal equipment amortization, obsolescence, and upgrade cycle.

“We believe the 2020 date gives manufacturers and users enough time to plan ahead for re-equipage,” says Jason Kim, senior policy analyst in the Office of Space Commercialization, “but we are offering an opportunity for the public to comment just to make sure we haven’t overlooked any major issues.”

Comments from both domestic and international users, manufacturers, and service providers are welcome due to the global nature of GPS use. The PNT National Executive Committee will take the public comments into account as it prepares a final announcement on the date for the codeless/semi-codeless GPS transition, which will also be published in the Federal Register. The final announcement would also state that should “unforeseen delays” occur in the GPS modernization program, the date will be reassessed.

For further information, contact Jason Kim, Office of Space Commercialization, U.S. Department of Commerce, telephone, (202) 482-5827; e-mail, <ja*******@**aa.gov>; fax, (202) 482-4429.

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Europe’s second Galileo In-Orbit Validation Element (GIOVE-B) satellite began transmitting navigation signals on May 7, including the common GPS-Galileo civil signal MBOC (multiplexed binary offset carrier).

Built under a cooperation between the European Space Agency (ESA) and European Union (EU), GIOVE-B was launched April 27 from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The MBOC signal design will be used by the future GPS L1C broadcasts as well as the Galileo Open Service in accordance with an agreement drawn up in July 2007 between the EU and the United States.

Locked to an on-board passive hydrogen maser clock, the GIOVE-B signals will help improve positioning accuracy in challenging environments with multipath and interference as well as better penetration for indoor navigation.

Europe’s second Galileo In-Orbit Validation Element (GIOVE-B) satellite began transmitting navigation signals on May 7, including the common GPS-Galileo civil signal MBOC (multiplexed binary offset carrier).

Built under a cooperation between the European Space Agency (ESA) and European Union (EU), GIOVE-B was launched April 27 from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The MBOC signal design will be used by the future GPS L1C broadcasts as well as the Galileo Open Service in accordance with an agreement drawn up in July 2007 between the EU and the United States.

Locked to an on-board passive hydrogen maser clock, the GIOVE-B signals will help improve positioning accuracy in challenging environments with multipath and interference as well as better penetration for indoor navigation.

“Now with GIOVE-B broadcasting its highly accurate signal in space, we have a true representation of what Galileo will offer to provide the most advanced satellite positioning services, while ensuring compatibility and interoperability with GPS,” said ESA’s Galileo project manager, Javier Benedicto.

Researchers have already begun tracking the new GIOVE-B signals. Grace Gao, a doctoral candidate in the GPS Laboratory at Stanford University (USA) who helped decode and characterize the Compass MEO signals (described in a July/August 2007 article in Inside GNSS), has decoded the two GIOVE-B codes in the L1 band. She identifies them both as 13-stage Gold codes. Gao has also derived the code generator polynomials.

Apparently, the codes that GIOVE-B are transmitting are different from the ones in the Galileo Interface Control Document (ICD). The broadcast codes are Gold codes, not memory codes. (The Galileo ICD is available on the European GNSS Supervisory Authority (GSA) website. The GSA is inviting feedback on the ICD until June 6. A comment form is available on the GSA website.) An article by Gao and colleagues describing their work will appear in the May/June 2008 issue of Inside GNSS.

According to engineers at Belgian GNSS receiver manufacturer Septentrio, the characteristic MBOC correlation peak as measured by Septentrio’s GeNeRx (see photo) from the live GIOVE-B signal perfectly agrees with expectations: the MBOC correlation exhibits a significantly narrower peak than the traditional BOC peak. The GeNeRx receiver started tracking the first MBOC signals in space on May 7, the day the satellite began broadcasting an MBOC modulation (more exactly the complex BOC or CBOC variant of it).

The quality of the signals is now being analyzed by several facilities, including the GIOVE-B Control Centre at Telespazio’s facilities in Fucino, Italy, the Galileo Processing Centre at ESA’s European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC), in the Netherlands, the ESA ground station at Redu, Belgium, and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) Chilbolton Observatory in the United Kingdom.

According to ESA, Galileo teams within ESA and industry have the means to observe and record the spectrum of the signals transmitted by GIOVE-B in real time. Several measurements are performed relating to transmitted signal power, center frequency and bandwidth, as well as the format of the navigation signals generated on board. This allows the analysis of the satellite transmissions in the three frequency bands reserved for it.

Chilbolton’s 25-meter antenna enables researchers to analyze the characteristics of GIOVE-B signals with great accuracy and verify that they conform to the Galileo system’s design specification. Whenever the satellite is visible from Redu and Chilbolton, the large antennas are activated and track the satellite. GIOVE-B is orbiting at an altitude of 23,173 kilometers, making a complete journey around the Earth every 14 hours and 3 minutes.

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Passage of a new regulation on Galileo sets the stage for the next phase of the €3.4-billion satellite navigation system’s development under a public procurement but leaves many details to be worked out among the key players: the European Commission (EC), the European Council, the European Parliament, and the European Space Agency (ESA).

Meeting in Strasbourg, France, the parliament adopted the measure on April 22 with 607 votes in favor, 36 votes against, and 8 abstentions.

“Things are looking up, finally, for the European GNSS programs,” Paul Verhoef, head of the Galileo unit in the EC’s Directorate-General for Transport and Energy, told an April 23 plenary session of the European Navigation Conference 2008 in Toulouse, France.

Passage of a new regulation on Galileo sets the stage for the next phase of the €3.4-billion satellite navigation system’s development under a public procurement but leaves many details to be worked out among the key players: the European Commission (EC), the European Council, the European Parliament, and the European Space Agency (ESA).

Meeting in Strasbourg, France, the parliament adopted the measure on April 22 with 607 votes in favor, 36 votes against, and 8 abstentions.

“Things are looking up, finally, for the European GNSS programs,” Paul Verhoef, head of the Galileo unit in the EC’s Directorate-General for Transport and Energy, told an April 23 plenary session of the European Navigation Conference 2008 in Toulouse, France.

The new Galileo regulation puts the EC firmly in control of program management, adds a post-deployment “exploitation phase” to the plan, provides broad outlines of responsibilities among European organizations, but leaves many aspects subject to further refinement.

These details include establishing the legal framework for operation of the system, regulatory measures, intellectual property rights (IPR), and liability regimes for the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) and Galileo itself.

The EC must also complete a delegation agreement with ESA to serve as the prime contractor, outlining responsibilities and guidelines for the procurement process.

The regulation targets the 2008–2013 time frame for completion of the deployment phase of Galileo, and Verhoef acknowledged that there is “a lot of pressure to stick to the timetable and budget.” However, the realities of developing a satellite navigation system are substantial, he added, “And we cannot overfly those realities as if they don’t exist.”

Verhoef said the program has to complete the procurement process before a more solid schedule can be determined, because the contracts with vendors will have a real timeline for commitment of deliverables.

Finalizing a Galileo Signal in Space Interface Control Document (SIS ICD) remains a priority so that private companies can begin designing and selling Galileo-capable equipment. The size and nature of non-European companies’ participation in the contracts to build the system also must be worked out in practical terms.

Other unresolved issues include the role of the European GNSS Supervisory Authority (GSA) in regards to EGNOS and ESA, as well as technical matters, including Galileo-related R&D projects under the 7th Framework Program (7FP).

The amount of money available for those projects also needs to be determined, given the new deployment plan’s reprogramming of $400 million from the 7FP budget.

Lastly, program leaders must decide on the process and guidelines for contracting with a system operator after a fully operational capability (FOC) is achieved for Galileo.

The Galileo legislation establishes a reorganized structure for deploying the GNSS system and managing the program. It confirms the previously established guidelines for the procurement process that will start in mid-June, with the EC as the program manager and ESA as the design authority that is also responsible for getting bids and letting contracts.

Program leaders hope to have selected vendors and gained signatures on contracts by late this year or early 2009. “ESA will start the procurement, but will not be able to sign contracts until other agreements worked out,” Verhoef said. “These negotiations will be done in parallel with the procurement process.” Verhoef says he hopes that the program can gain six to nine months by following this parallel approach.

The outlines of the regulation had been agreed to in advance during an “informal meeting” among representatives on the council, commission, and parliament earlier this year. That agreement followed approval in late January of a proposal by Parliament’s Industry, Research, and Energy (ITRE) Committee to abolish the GSA and turn responsibility for ensuring the Galileo system’s security requirements over to a new Committee on European GNSS Programs.

“Parliament was rather badly surprised by our announcement last year that the PPP negotiations were ending,” Verhoef said in Toulouse. “They felt they needed better insight into the progress of the program.”

As agreed upon by the three organizations, the regulation sets up a new entity, the Galileo Inter-institutional Panel (GIP), which will be composed of three representatives each of the council and parliament and one representative from the EC. The GIP will monitor the implementation of the GNSS program, the international agreements with third countries, and the preparation of the satellite navigation markets.

The GSA, which would have had a more central role as overseer of a once-envisioned public-private partnership (PPP) to deploy and operate Galileo, will retain a board composed of representatives from the 25 EU member-states and continue as a separate agency but under the direction of the EC.

Under the new regulation, the GSA will now monitor the implementation of security procedures and perform system security audits, “[r]especting the Commission’s role as manager of the programmes and in accordance with guidelines issued by the Commission.”

Ultimate responsibility for management of the security program remains with the EC, which plans on establishing a GNSS Security Board chaired by the commission and composed of security experts with representatives from each member state.

The GSA will be responsible for establishing and operating the new Galileo security center and also will “contribute to the preparation of the commercialisation of the systems with a view to smooth functioning, seamless service provision and high market penetration.”

The regulation also enables the EC to assign other tasks to the agency, “in particular the promotion of applications and services and ensuring the certification of the components of the systems.”

The full text of the regulation can be found at the parliament’s website.

Finishing the Galileo Signal Specification
Officials acknowledge that they need to finalize the Galileo SIS ICD as soon as possible, especially now that the GIOVE-B satellite is in orbit broadcasting new signals, including the multiplex BOC (MBOC) designed for civil use. Verhoef told Inside GNSS that he would like to have the issue resolved by the ION GNSS 2008 conference in September, where he expects to face a lot of questions from GNSS equipment designers and manufacturers.

The issue is complicated, however, by the prohibition on commercial use of the current provisional ICD as well as the question of possible fees that a post-FOC Galileo system operator might want to collect for services or from GNSS equipment manufacturers. One option, Verhoef says, would be to issue free licenses to manufacturers for a limited term. Another would be to resolve the issue in advance and implement those terms in the course of negotiating a concession contract with an eventual Galileo operator.

Manufacturers are pressing for a resolution of the problem before investing in receiver developments that might be wasted if the ICD changes, especially those companies planning on building equipment based on application specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and even field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs).

Although a number of receiver manufacturers have announced Galileo-ready equipment, those generally only involved the design of the receiver front-ends — antennas and RF integrated circuits that can process the wider bandwidth of Galileo (and future GPS). The digital signal processing (DSP) portion of the receiver is what really requires the certain specifications of a final ICD, although manufacturers working with software defined radios — also known as software receivers — have more flexibility in altering their products to accommodate changes.

Gard Ueland, president of the Galileo Services association of “downstream” manufacturers, told Inside GNSS that industry wants to have the Galileo infrastructure in place as soon as possible but would also like to see funds go into R&D projects for early demonstrations of Galileo applications.

GSA and the Road Ahead
The fate of the GSA’s staff and the budget for FP7 R&D projects also remains up in the air.

The plan that transitioned the Galileo acquisition from a PPP process required an additional €2.4 billion in public funds. €400 million of that amount was designated as coming from the €50 billion 7th Framework Program budget of European capital investment during 2007–2013.

The GSA had been allocated €350 million in 7FP funds for GNSS-related technical R&D projects. How much of that amount might be taken back to make up the €400 million remains to be determined.

About €40 million was allocated for the GSA’s first call for projects last year, and another €40 million has been designated for a second call this year, according to Pedro Pedreira, GSA’s executive director.

Typically, only half of a framework program budget ends up being spent in the original categorical allocations, with the remainder being reprogrammed as a sort of European Community contingency fund. Verhoef says the issue will be revisited during the 7FP mid-term review in 2010.

As for GSA staff, the EC is considering whether to move some of the agency’s technical personnel directly into its Galileo unit. Pedreira told Inside GNSS that he wants to ensure “stability” for current GSA staff and hopes to have a revised work plan clarified with the EC by the end of June, and a 2009 work plan approved by the GSA board by the end of September.

The new regulation calls for preparations for an exploitation phase comprising infrastructure management, maintenance, “constant improvement,” and replenishment of the system, as well as certification and standardization operations.

The GSA has been working since last July on a concept for post-FOC operations and has come up with what Pedreira characterized as a “very exciting, innovative” proposal that he believes will “meet the expectations of member states.”

“We are really talking about the transfer of risks,” Pedreira said, an issue that ultimately stymied the original PPP effort. “How would the system operate within the EU legal framework?”

But GSA needs to “sell” the EC on the concept on the concept and, in turn, the EC would have to choose the time to present any proposal to the council. In any case, Pedreira added, there’s no rush for a new operations PPP, which would be difficult to conclude at this point and probably cost more. In the meantime, the program is too busy figuring out work share and procurement contracts.

But That’s Not All
As if these tasks were not enough, other issues remain to be addressed by Galileo program leaders.

Another round of talks is taking place this week in Brussels with Chinese representatives regarding the proposal to place a portion of the Compass (Beidou) signals on the same frequency planned for Galileo’s public regulated service (PRS).

It’s much the same situation as arose a few years ago when Europe originally proposed to overlay its L1 open service signals on the new GPS military (M-code) signal. That potential conflict was eventually resolved in the course of negotiating the 2004 Galileo/GPS cooperation agreement between the United States and the European Union.

“We need to make sure we have the same idea of the problem,” Verhoef told a press conference during the ENC 2008. “As with all engineering, you spend half the time identifying the problem and the other half solving it.

“We have particular problems [with the Compass frequency plan] that we’re not sure the Chinese are aware of,” he added.

The Chinese delegation included Liao Xiaohan, deputy director of High & New Technology Development and Industry for the Ministry of Science and Industry, who spoke at the ENC 2008 conference. Other members were Ran Chengqi, deputy director of the China Satellite Navigation Project Center (CSNPC), and Yang Qiangwen, CSNPC senior engineer.

The new regulation also appears to try to head off any further complications arising from Spain’s desire to upgrade its safety-of-life center to a fully qualified Galileo satellite control center equivalent to those planned in Oberpfaffenhofen, German, and Fucino, Italy. Under the regulation, the program would accept the creation of such a facility and its inclusion in the system’s ground infrastructure as long as no additional cost fell on the Galileo and EGNOS program budgets for the 2007–2013 period.

Meanwhile, non-European companies — particularly U.S. aerospace firms — are pressing for clarification of the level of their involvement in the program, which will follow EU rules, not those of ESA that guarantee a “geographic” award of contracts to companies based on their national governments’ financial contribution to a program.

Considering the experience of past European space programs, “a substantial amount of American components will be flown on the system,” Verhoef said.

The new procurement plan seems to relegate non-European companies to subcontract status. But some companies would like to be able to compete for the lead contracts for the Galileo satellites, for instance.

Because the procurement guidelines limit large companies to only bidding on two of six Galileo “work packages,” some question remains as to whether at least two competitors will show up to go after the lead spacecraft contract. EADS Astrium is expected to compete, as is OHB Technologies (whether or not partnered with Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd., which EADS is in the process of acquiring).

The regulation encourages dual-sourcing, but Verhoef told the press conference, “We’re not going to wait for three or four years to get somebody who’s able to bid.”

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