Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
In fall of 2009, the U.S. Air Force will begin broadcasting a transitional civil navigation (CNAV) message on the GPS L2 civil signal (L2C) now being transmitted on the modernized Block IIR (IIR-M) satellites. Currently, L2C is being broadcast as a dataless sequence without modulation.
By Glen Gibbons
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.
By Glen Gibbons
GPS III conceptual drawing, The Aerospace CorporationThe Air Force has further delayed the announcement of its decision on who will be the prime contractor for the next block of GPS satellites, IIIA. Earlier reports had set the contract award announcement for early April.
On Wednesday (April 23), Anthony Russo, deputy director of the National Coordination Office for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT), told a European Navigation Conference 2008 in Toulouse, France, that "source selection" has been identified. He added, "I had hoped to announce [the results] at this conference, but the process is not complete yet."
Source selection means that the GPS Wing at the Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) has completed its
evaluation of the bids on the contract and the preferred provider for the new generation of satellites. The Wing — responsible for overseeing the acquisition of GPS space, ground, and military user equipment — has a presentation ready on the IIIA contract award but is waiting to brief the Air Force decision maker, in this case, apparently Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne.
The GPS III modernization program came up short in the 2008 fiscal year (FY08) Department of Defense (DoD) appropriations bill signed into law by President Bush on November 13.
In passing H.R. 3222, Congress reduced the president’s request by $100 million to $487.23 million for the budgetary year ending next October 1.
Military GPS M-code user equipment (MUE) did better, however: gaining $63.2 million on Capitol Hill, over and above the $93.27 proposed in the administration’s budget, for a total of $156.47 million.
By Glen Gibbons
The U.S. Air Force has awarded Lockheed Martin Company a $6 million contract to develop and integrate a demonstration payload that will temporarily transmit an L5 civil signal on a modernized GPS Block IIR (GPS IIR-M) satellite.
By Inside GNSS
Okay, now it’s official: The GPS Block III contract award has been delayed from Fiscal Year 2006 (FY06) to Fiscal Year 2007 (FY07).
By Inside GNSS
