Raytheon Corporation announced today (April 12, 2016) that the company successfully passed the first formal qualification test milestone for the Next Generation GPS Operational Control System (OCX) on March 4.
Raytheon Corporation announced today (April 12, 2016) that the company successfully passed the first formal qualification test milestone for the Next Generation GPS Operational Control System (OCX) on March 4.
The test event was the Configuration Item Qualification Test, or CIQT, milestone for the Launch and Checkout System, or LCS. The system provides launch and early orbit checkout capabilities for the modernized GPS III satellites and implements 77 percent of the cybersecurity capabilities for the overall OCX program, according to the company. The testing was successfully conducted in a representative operational environment with a government-provided GPS III satellite simulator.
"The completion of this test milestone validates the maturity of the OCX launch and checkout system," said Bill Sullivan, GPS OCX program director for Raytheon. "As a result of strong collaboration with the Air Force, we were able to demonstrate the system’s performance and increase confidence in the program’s path ahead."
Raytheon said that the LCS CIQT Run-for-Record was completed more than one month ahead of the plan established in mid-2015, clearing the way for LCS to proceed toward the Factory Qualification Test, the next major qualification event. The FQT test will be at the integrated system level and will take place this summer.
GPS OCX is being developed by a team led by Raytheon under contract to the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, which is replacing the current GPS operational control system. The OCX Launch and Checkout System provides an early delivery of a large subset of the overall OCX capability, and will support the GPS III satellite launches
Raytheon is years behind on the Next Generation Operational Control System (OCX), a project whose price tag may now top $4 billion. However, Gen. John Hyten, the head of Air Force Space Command, recently told Congress that the finishing OCX with the current contractor was still the best alternative.
