Just as the Department of the Air Force is soliciting offers for a new constellation of resilient GPS satellites, House appropriators on Thursday will begin to mark-up a defense bill that would eliminate a chunk of the proposed funding for the new initiative and demand the Pentagon explore alternative solutions.
The recommendation in the proposed fiscal year 2025 defense appropriations bill would eliminate the $77 million realignment requested by the U.S. Space Force for the Resilient-GPS (R-GPS) program and raises three concerns about the program, which the service estimates will cost $1 billion over the next five years.
The report accompanying the House Appropriations Committee’s defense bill acknowledges that a “constellation of about 20 small satellites transmitting core GPS signals” would have its benefits related to strengthening the resilience of these signals but fails to address the larger problem of enemy jamming versus the pursuit of ongoing position, navigation, and timing (PNT) efforts elsewhere in the Defense Department.
The second concern is that R-GPS is focused on the space portion of PNT and ignores the fact that users lack encrypted receivers, what the report calls M-code GPS user equipment, which is “a critical link to enabling jam-resistant capabilities.”
The final concern is linked to the timing of the R-GPS efforts as part of the budget process. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, who also oversees the Space Force, in April initiated the program as a Quick Start initiative based on recent congressional authorities allowing DoD to begin development programs without an approved budget from Congress.
Kendall asked Congress to “immediately repurpose $40 million” from the FY ’23 defense budget for R-GPS, the House Appropriations report says. But it says the program could have been part of the routine budget process rather than a Quick Start initiative, noting it could have been considered before the FY ’24 Defense Appropriations Act was finalized or as part of the FY ’25 request.
“Instead, the Department chose to bypass its own budget process and dodge the congressional appropriations process to exercise this new, extraordinary authority,” the report says.
If enacted, the report would direct DoD’s Director of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation to consult with the Joint Requirements Oversight Council to report on “whether R-GPS is the best alternative to improve the resiliency of position, navigation, and timing services to support national security.”
Last Friday, the Space Enterprise Consortium, on behalf of the Space Force’s Space Systems Command, released a solicitation for R-GPS seeking submissions to rapidly procure the satellites that would be significantly smaller than the current GPS fleet and get to launch sooner with more spacecraft per fight (Defense Daily, June 11).
The current U.S. GPS constellation consists of at least 30 satellites in medium-Earth orbit.