Raytheon has reached another milestone in its development of the US Air Force’s Global Positioning System Next Generation Operational Control System, known as GPS OCX. This new system offers significant improvements to the GPS on which the US military and millions of civilians rely, including enhanced availability, accuracy and security.
OCX’s development is delivered in ‘blocks’, with Block 0 comprising the Launch and Checkout System to take GPS III satellites into early orbit. Block 1 is built on Block 0 and delivers the full OCX capability, which allows the Air Force to transition from its current GPS ground controls to the modernized and secure GPS OCX master control station.
Raytheon recently completed a series of risk reduction functional checkouts of OCX Block 1 capabilities, with a focus on OCX software. This latest development activity integrated iteration 1.5 of the OCX Block 1 Master Control Station with the GPS System Simulator and ran operational scenarios, representing the first end-to-end integration of available Block 1 capabilities.
The testing included GPS constellation management and sustainment, demonstrating OCX’s abilities for precision navigation and timing capabilities in a fully cyber-hardened environment. The test included running Kalman filters and generating GPS satellite navigation uploads. The completion of the risk reduction functional checkout informs and benefits future OCX development efforts. Future development will add to the existing capability and expand capability to include both the civil and military modernized signals.
The US Air Force-led GPS Modernization Program will yield new positioning, navigation and timing capabilities for both the US military and civilian users across the globe. GPS OCX is being developed by Raytheon under contract to the US Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, which is replacing the current GPS operational control system.
GPS OCX provides a number of significant modernized capabilities for GPS users, including robust cybersecurity and deployment of jam-resistant, operational military code, or M-code. The OCX Launch and Checkout System provides an early delivery of much of the overall block 1 OCX capability, and will support the GPS III satellite launches.
October 20, 2016
