L3Harris Technologies [LHX] said that it recently conducted a two-day “comprehensive Design Concept Review (DCR) showcasing a Resilient-GPS (R-GPS) prototype that performed beyond current requirements.”
In September, U.S. Space Force Space Systems Command (SSC) said that it had chosen L3Harris, Astranis, Sierra Space, and Astrion‘s Axient to submit design concepts to launch up to eight R-GPS satellites by 2028 (Defense Daily, Sept. 24, 2024).
Last year, former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall named R-GPS as a Quick Start program. Section 229 of the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act delegated Quick Start authority to allow DoD to appropriate up to $100 million for research and development for new efforts to satisfy urgent technology needs.
L3Harris said that the recent R-GPS DCR used the company’s “Navigation Technology Satellite-3 (NTS-3) reprogrammable payload and National Security Agency-certified reprogrammable cryptograph” to simulate the control of an R-GPS satellite “to transmit navigation signals that were acquired and tracked by a monitor station receiver, as well as Military User Equipment and commercial receivers, signifying that R-GPS can seamlessly and efficiently be integrated into the existing GPS infrastructure.”
Sierra Space said in January that its System Requirements Review validated the company’s R-GPS design. On March 30, Sierra Space said that it collaborated with General Dynamics‘ [GD] Mission Systems business to show that the design generated “all GPS navigation signals required for the R-GPS mission.”
In early March, Astranis said that it had demonstrated its R-GPS design by “transmitting core GPS waveforms using Astranis’ software-defined radio hardware.”
At the request of Space Force, Congress shifted $30 million in the year-long fiscal 2025 Continuing Resolution from the service’s Protected Tactical SATCOM (PTS) effort to R-GPS. The first two PTS-Prototype (PTS-P) payloads by Boeing [BA] and Northrop Grumman [NOC] are to orbit in fiscal 2026–the Boeing PTS-P on Boeing’s Wideband Global SATCOM-11 (WGS-11) satellite and Northrop Grumman’s PTS-P on the company’s ESPAStar-HP satellite. PTS is a successor to the Advanced Extremely High Frequency program.
Problems with the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan Centaur rocket have delayed the NTS-3 and WGS-11 launches. In 2014, ULA, a partnership between Boeing and Lockheed Martin [LMT], began developing Vulcan Centaur, which received launch certification in April.
“The ULA Vulcan program has performed unsatisfactorily this past year,” Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy told the House Armed Services Committee in May. “Major issues with the Vulcan have overshadowed its successful certification resulting in delays to the launch of four national security missions. Despite the retirement of highly successful Atlas and Delta launch vehicles, the transition to Vulcan has been slow and continues to impact the completion of Space Force mission objectives. To address these challenges ULA has increased its engineering resources and management focus to resolve design issues. Government and Federally Funded Research and Development Center personnel have increased involvement in technical and program management challenges.”
