A six-month delay is expected in the delivery of the Raytheon Technologies [RTX] Global Positioning System Next-Generation Operational Control System (GPS OCX) to the Department of the Air Force due to COVID-19 and technical challenges, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said.
Raytheon confirmed the October delivery forecast.
“COVID-19-related challenges resulted in schedule delays and cost increases for the program,” the GAO said in its new weapon systems annual assessment. “Due to travel restrictions and technical issues, the program’s global deployment of modernized GPS signal monitoring stations was delayed by 1 year from the program’s estimate prior to the pandemic.”
“As of July 2021, the program has now installed all 17 monitoring stations,” the report said “Additionally, primarily pandemic-related and technical challenges caused the program to shift the planned delivery date of Blocks 1 and 2 from April 2022 to October 2022, shortening the period between delivery and planned start of operations. This delay reduces the program’s time to absorb further delays before operations start or to fix problems after delivery, risking the planned April 2023 initial operational capability date.”
GPS OCX Blocks 1 and 2 are to control older GPS II and newer GPS III satellites, launched starting in 2018, and both older and modernized signals. On April 30 last year, U.S. Space Force awarded Raytheon a $234 million contract for the development of GPS OCX IIIF by Aug. 30, 2025 for the GPS IIIF satellites.
“The program reported that there was a funding shortfall for upgrading the hardware needed for the GPS IIIF satellite launch and checkout system,” per the new GAO report. “To resolve this issue, the program plans to use an existing facility that was built for testing and sustainment.”
On March 26, 2020, U.S. Space Force said that it told Raytheon to replace GPS OCX’s IBM [IBM] computer hardware before the delivery of GPS OCX due to the sale of IBM’s computer product line to Lenovo, owned by China (Defense Daily, June 17, 2021). Space Force said that it had successfully tested alternative computer hardware made by Hewlett Packard Enterprise [HPE], a U.S. company, in a pilot project after HPE’s selection in 2017.
That pilot project replaced IBM hardware with HPEs in the 17 monitoring stations for GPS and four GPS ground antenna sites, Space Force said.
Raytheon’s Intelligence and Space division said on June 10 that it has also completed deployment of the master control station and transition support facility at Schriever Space Force Base, Colo., and “completed the Block 1 Certificate of Conformance in December 2021, representing software qualification against the legacy IBM hardware baseline.”
Cost estimates for GPS OCX increased from $3.9 billion in November 2012 to nearly $6.8 billion in September 2020.
Raytheon has said that GPS OCX “will provide improved accuracy of the current system and will be able to fly more than twice as many satellites”–an increase that the company said “will increase coverage in hard-to-reach areas such as urban canyons and mountainous terrain.”
“GPS OCX has implemented 100 percent of the Department of Defense’s information assurance standards without waivers, giving it the highest level of cybersecurity protections of any DoD space-ground system,” per Raytheon. “The cyber-secure system will have improved accuracy with better international availability as well as globally deployed modernized receivers with anti-jam capabilities.”
The new GAO report said that GPS OCX program officials “reported that there are over 6,000 software deficiencies as of December 2021.”
“They stated that the contractor made progress reducing the backlog for the old hardware effort and expects the rate of discovery of new deficiencies to start to decrease for the new hardware effort in February or March 2022 after the contractor shifts to focus solely on this effort.”
“DCMA (Defense Contract Management Agency) officials said that the potential number of software deficiencies expected to be remaining in the backlog after delivery of Blocks 1 and 2 in October 2022 is a risk,” the new GAO report said. “Program officials plan to prioritize addressing deficiencies that affect operations.”
Defense Daily will add any relevant responses from Space Force, if and when received.