Lockheed Martin [LMT] has completed, and is preparing to install, the navigation, communication and hosted payload antenna assemblies for the first satellite of the next generation Global Positioning System (GPS) III constellation, according to a company statement.
Seven antenna assemblies were delivered to Lockheed Martin’s GPS III processing facility near Denver on June 14. Lockheed Martin spokesman Chip Eschenfelder said the company expects to start integrating the antennas with the first GPS III space vehicle early next year. The first antennas installed will be the main mission antennas on the earth deck with the tracking telemetry and control and secondary payload antennas to follow as Lockheed Martin prepares for environmental testing, Eschenfelder said.
 |
| Lockheed Martin’s GPS III satellite. Photo: Lockheed Martin. |
Antenna assembly is basically the final step in GPS III space vehicle assembly, Eschenfelder said. After final antenna installation, the entire system goes through environmental testing, including acoustic and pyroshock, thermal vaccuum and anechoic chamber radio frequency testing, before being readied to ship to the launch site.
The new antennas for GPS III space vehicle one will provide the satellite’s capability to send and/or receive data for earth coverage and military earth coverage navigation; a ultra high frequency (UHF) crosslink for inter-satellite data transfer; telemetry, tracking and control for satellite-ground communications and data acquisition and communication for the nuclear detection system hosted payload. The antenna designs enable three to eight times greater anti-jamming single power to be broadcast to military users across the globe compared to previous GPS satellite generations.
Lockheed Martin last week said its GPS III Non-Flight Satellite Testbed (GNST) successfully completed a series of high-fidelity pathfinding events that validated the process and the facility the satellites will go through before launch. The GNST is a full-sized GPS III satellite prototype that has helped to identify and resolve development issues before integration and test of the first GPS III space vehicle (Defense Daily, July 15).
Lockheed Martin said in June an industry team it led successfully completed functional integration tests of the spacecraft bus and network communications equipment on the first GPS III space vehicle (Defense Daily, June 6).
GPS III space vehicle one is still scheduled for “flight-ready” delivery in 2014.