Storm clouds could be forming on the horizon for Raytheon [RTN] and its Global Positioning System (GPS) operational control segment (OCX) as Pentagon officials have escalated public criticism of the beleaguered program in recent weeks while confronting a $15 billion budget gap for fiscal year 2017.
Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) chief Gen. John Hyten on Tuesday called OCX a “disaster,” the service’s strongest criticism in recent memory, and said it was “embarrassing” to have to defend it to the public.
“When you start down a path and you basically can’t deliver and you keep pushing a system to the right and you keep pouring money at it and the contractor does not deliver, you’re in a tough spot,” Hyten told an audience during a Peter Huessy breakfast series event on Capitol Hill. “So we’re going to do some pretty significant things with that contractor.”
In addition to Hyten’s criticism, former Air Force acquisition chief William LaPlante said in late November that OCX was “still bad,” without elaborating. Reuters reported Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (AT&L) Frank Kendall said that he was “very worried” about OCX and that he planned another “deep dive” review of the program. Air Force Secretary Deborah James told Defense Daily last week figuring out how to proceed with OCX would be a “key objective” over the next month or two.
These remarks come after lawmakers in December also handed the Defense Department a $15 billion budget deficit to fill for FY ’17 when they hashed out a November compromise to lift sequestration-related budget caps for the next two fiscal years. DoD is also assembling its budget request for FY ’17, which it will deliver in the spring.
Lexington Institute think tank Chief Operating Officer Loren Thompson said Tuesday that one could have the feeling this escalating criticism of OCX at the time of a budget gap is not a coincidence.
“You get the feeling from the way officials are talking that something bad is coming for OCX,” Thompson said.
Air Force spokeswoman Capt. Annmarie Annicelli said Tuesday that a “deep dive” review of OCX was accomplished on Friday and that the current estimate for completion of the development program would extend another two years. The Air Force and Raytheon, she said, will continue to focus on a more efficient execution of the developmental effort to get the critical capability fielded. Annicelli said based on the approved schedule extension, the service will be developing a new cost estimate to replace the one recently approved in support of the review.
OCX has struggled to gain momentum since the contract was awarded in 2010. Hyten told reporters after his presentation that the Air Force “clearly” underestimated the difficulty of how to best write the information assurance requirement into the contract when it was awarded. He said the Air Force put all the requirements for information assurance on the contract and told Raytheon “go build that.” Thompson said the problem was the Air Force made OCX a “pathfinder” program for cyber security and imposed requirements that were unprecedented for any satellite ground system.
Hyten said, on the other hand, Raytheon did a “really bad job” at system engineering the problem before it started coding. Hyten, a system engineering and software “guy” before ascending up the ranks at AFSPC, said if a company tries to fix code in tests because it didn’t have “it all nailed down” before starting to write the code, the result is a “fundamental problem.”
But Hyten didn’t want to push all criticism for OCX struggles onto Raytheon.
“It’s a two-way street, it’s not all contractor or government,” he said. “I think we had a tough time stating the information assurance requirements up front and understanding what those impacts really were.”
Raytheon Vice President for Navigation and Environmental Studies Matt Gilligan said Tuesday via a spokeswoman that the company is focused on continued development of the modernized, cyber-hardened GPS OCX and that Raytheon is fully committed to delivering, “without compromise,” the modernized GPS ground control system envisioned and required by the Air Force.
Hyten said the Air Force can fly its next-generation GPS III satellites on the current Block Zero edition of OCX, which he said handles launch, on-orbit checkout and satellite flying. But he said he’s concerned about the long-term consequence of not fixing OCX. Thompson, of the Lexington Institute, said these long-term consequences would include not getting the military code (M-code), nor other commercial codes or sufficient cyber security for the GPS III constellation.
Thompson said Raytheon and the Air Force have spent the last two years fixing OCX and that if the service kills the program, it will take “forever” to get the full functionality of GPS III. He also said if the Air Force recompetes OCX, it will mean the service is starting over. Thompson said the legacy Operational Control Segment (OCS) that serves as the ground system for the legacy GPS fleet is so old that upgrading it in place of OCX would be so difficult and time consuming that it is “hard to imagine” the Air Force would get the functionality of GPS III in a reasonable time frame.
“If they start over, you can kiss the full functionality of GPS goodbye for maybe a decade to come,” Thompson said.
Raytheon is not the only contractor affiliated with GPS III to struggle. Satellite manufacturer Lockheed Martin [LMT] and subcontractor Exelis [XLS] wrestled with the navigational payload of the satellite. The Air Force even financially punished Lockheed Martin for poor GPS III performance by withholding nearly $26 million between May 2011 and September 2014 (Defense Daily; Sept. 25, 2014).
Harris [HRS] is a subcontractor to Raytheon on OCX. Harris spokeswoman Ellen Mitchell said Tuesday in an email that the company supported the system design and prototype for the first phase of the program and is developing technology for the key navigation components of the control segment. Harris, she said, delivered eight baseline encryptors in 2013 to Raytheon and another six enhanced ground encryptors in 2014. Mitchell also said Harris is building ground station receivers that will soon enter production.
Mitchell said Harris is on contract with Raytheon to build a total of 34 receivers that will analyze signals from the GPS III navigation payloads and the GPS IIR, IIR-M and IIF series payloads. Mitchell declined to say whether Harris would bid individually for OCX if the program is recompeted, adding that the company is focused on executing its current contract with Raytheon.