Lockheed Completes Design Milestone for GPS III

Lockheed Completes Design Milestone for GPS III
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-07-lockheed-martin-team-milestone-gps.html

Lockheed Martin has successfully completed on-schedule a System Design
Review (SDR) for the Global Positioning System (GPS) IIIB satellite
increment under the U.S. Air Force’s next generation GPS III program.
GPS III will improve position, navigation and timing services and
provide advanced anti-jam capabilities yielding superior system
security, accuracy and reliability for users around the globe.

Lockheed Martin Space Systems (Newtown, Pennsylvania) is under contract
to produce the first two of a planned eight GPS IIIA satellites, with
first launch projected for 2014. The contract, which features a “back to
basics” acquisition approach, includes a Capability Insertion Program
(CIP) designed to mature technologies and perform rigorous systems
engineering for future GPS III increments.

An important milestone that precedes the Preliminary Design Review, the
GPS IIIB SDR established requirements for the capability insertion
planned for the follow-on GPS IIIB satellites and validated the
satellite design will meet the ever increasing demand of more than one
billion GPS users worldwide. “This milestone comes at a pivotal time
when the need to affordably and predictably enhance the GPS
constellation’s capabilities is at an all time high,” said Lt. Col. Don
Frew, the U.S. Air Force’s GPS III program manager. “Thanks to hard work
from the entire government and industry GPS III team, we have a solid,
low-risk path to introduce critical new capabilities to billions of
military, civil and commercial GPS users.”

GPS IIIA will deliver signals three times more accurate than current GPS
spacecraft and provide three times more power for military users, while
also enhancing the spacecraft’s design life and adding a new civil
signal designed to be interoperable with international global navigation
satellite systems. GPS IIIB will provide higher power modernized
signals, a fully digital navigation payload capable of generating new
navigation signals after launch and a Distress Alerting Satellite System
payload that relays distress signals from emergency beacons back to
search and rescue operations.

The Lockheed Martin-led GPS III team, which includes ITT of Bloomfield,
New Jersey, and General Dynamics of Scottsdale, Arizona, completed the
milestone with the U.S. Air Force at Lockheed Martin's facilities in
Newtown. Representatives from the U.S. Air Force's GPS Directorate, Air
Force Space Command, the Defense Contract Management Agency, the Federal
Aviation Administration, Department of Defense and user communities
participated in the review.

“Working together with the U.S. Air Force and GPS user communities, this
milestone validates that we have developed the most affordable and
lowest risk solution to introducing vital new capabilities for the GPS
constellation,” said Keoki Jackson, Lockheed Martin’s GPS III program
manager. “We understand the importance of GPS to our nation and the
world, and we are laser focused on executing the entire GPS III program
to meet the world's global navigation and timing needs for the next 30
years.”

Meanwhile, Lockheed Martin is progressing steadily on the GPS IIIA
program and is on schedule to deliver the first satellite for launch in
2014. In August of 2010, the joint government and industry team
completed a critical design review, which validated the detailed GPS
IIIA design and allowed the program to begin the transition to the
production phase. The program has now switched its focus from design to
manufacturing and has already completed 90 percent of the program’s 59
manufacturing readiness reviews.

With a focus on affordability and risk reduction, the GPS III team is
developing a GPS Non-Flight Satellite Testbed (GNST), which will serve
as the program’s ground pathfinder and vehicle demonstrator for the
first complete GPS IIIA satellite. The entire GPS III development and
production sequence will use the GNST to provide space vehicle design
level validation; early verification of ground, support, and test
equipment; and early confirmation and rehearsal of transportation
operations.

Most recently, GPS III subcontractor ATK shipped the GNST core structure
to Lockheed Martin in May. The GNST will run through the same steps of
the production flow as the flight vehicles, including environmental
testing at Lockheed Martin factories in Newtown and Littleton, Colorado,
followed by processing at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. The
team is on track to deliver the GNST to the new Littleton GPS Processing
Facility (GPF) in December 2011.

"Laser focused" - wow, that's a new one (for me)!
--
Colin

s/2011-07-lockheed-martin-team-milestone-gp...
.
o
on
ork
s

2014 IIIA-1 launch ??? There are still 10 GPS IIF launches to go, even
3 launches every two years isn't likely.
First GPS III launch is unlikely to happen prior to 2017, most likely
2020, in which case, IIIA manufacturing should be skipped, design
IIIA, but skip production at least straight to IIIB, or even straight
to IIIC.
If there were two IIF launches a year, IIA satellites still operating
well within specs would be turned into residuals early.
Pretty soon there will be 10 GPS IIF satellites in storage as Boeing
pulse line completes their manufacturing.
Launching all IIF satellites will effect the retirement of all IIA
satellites, many of which are still performing (clock stability and
ephemeris quality) right at the constellation average.
At some point I hope it's decided to start launching 3 GPS birds a
year until L5 is FOC, but I don't expect this to happen until the end
of the decade, once civil aviation is really heavily dependent of GPS
(mandatory ADS-B equipage and LPV approaches in all suitable runways
in North America and Europe). At some point lack of L5 availability
will be the main factor preventing decommissioning of expensive ground
based NAVAIDs like ILS, VOR and NDBs. Or Galileo will become more
important for civil aviation than GPS with L5 built in ! Perhaps by
then SpaceX and others are providing launch services much cheaper than
today's ULA costs.
With SVN63 becoming healthy there will be 21 IIR or better healthy
birds, just 3 shy of the recognized operational minimum.
Hopefully USAF will start aiming for 32 operational satellites, which
might justify two launches next year assuming a single old IIA
satellite dying of old age. Apparently SVN30 last clock is bad, and
SVN35 couldn't be brought back online with acceptable quality. PRN27
clock is within specs, but clearly much worse than other birds.

Marcelo Pacheco

Project reviews are always skewed suggesting all is going well.
Things don't usually go well during overall system integration or when
the schedule must be 'adjusted' after meddling with the funding
stream.

Does it make any sense to launch any Block III satellites before their
control infrastructure is in place? The GPS Directorate has been
criticized for poor project execution with respect to phasing OCX with
the hardware deliveries.

Then the satellites are becoming too complex. Everyone screamed for
more civil GPS signals. L5 makes sense. Out of a personal impulsive
reaction for logic and order, I would have skipped L1C and L2C. Then,
I would have opened the P code on L1 and L2 to the public allowing
while allowing the military to implement its modernized M code ..
simpler satellites, ground segment with improved civil performance
with maintenance of all legacy capability.

With a longer code sequence and dual frequency, P code can provide
civil users with perfectly adequate positioning and possibly eliminate
the need for some DGPS infrastructures.

I'm sure that signals crowd will scream at me, I'm aware new signal
designs offer advantages in acquisition and tracking but modern
receivers are now quite capable of delivering superb performance with
the existing signals.

--- CHAS

On 2011-07-19 10:05 , HIPAR wrote:

In my experience project reviews cause acceleration of resolution of
dangling items in the requirements/spec/detailed design/test docs and so
on.

They rarely suggest things are "going well" ... for every thing they
show going well there are people in the room who have a nose for BS and
they aren't shy to ask questions that bring out the underlying truth.

--
gmail originated posts filtered due to spam.