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GPS ground control making progress, but needs more money

July 12, 2016  - By
Image: GPS World

The Pentagon is seeking an additional $39.2 million from Congress to help develop the United States Air Force’s next-generation GPS ground control system (OCX), reports Inside Defense. Without the additional funding, the OCX would be delayed an additional four months and cost $90 million more to complete, the Pentagon said.

The embattled OCX showed progress in its July 7 quarterly review, according to an Air Force statement. Acquisition Undersecretary Frank Kendall and Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James — “with support of Lt. Gen. Samuel Greaves, Space and Missile Systems Center commander and Air Force program executive officer for Space — concluded Raytheon has made progress implementing these critical changes.”

On June 30, the Air Force declared a Nunn-McCurdy breach for its next-generation GPS control system. The declaration means that the U.S. Air Force notifies Congress that the program would exceed baseline cost estimates by at least 25 percent, triggering regimented cost control measures.

“Factors that led to the critical Nunn-McCurdy breach include inadequate systems engineering at program inception, Block 0 software with high defect rates and Block 1 designs requiring significant rework,” a statement from the Air Force said. “Additionally, the complexity of cybersecurity requirements on OCX and impact of those requirements on the development caused multiple delays. The corrective actions to resolve these problems took much longer than anticipated to implement.”

The program enters a review period led by Kendall, which is scheduled to conclude in October.

In December, Kendall did not rule out a re-compete, and the Pentagon announced it was delaying initial operations for the ground system until July 2021. The GPS III satellites cannot use their full capabilities with the current ground control systems, but the Air Force plans to use old ground systems retrofitted to work with the GPS III designs until the OCX is operational.

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3 Comments on "GPS ground control making progress, but needs more money"

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  1. no name says:

    You mean a programmer writes crappy code so you keep paying him more money?!?!? this is the bullshit that has to stop with our government programs and contactors. You deliver what you promise and we pay you what we promise.

  2. John W. Veatch says:

    have just returned to my offices in Reston va. & I had an opportunity to look thru your latest mag. I had no idea that there were so many companies & individuals developing field data collection systems. What seems to be missing from the articular I read was any reference to who was going to use these systems & where were the dollar$ that were driving these designs.. It has been my experience that the applications of any technology is what makes it happen..

    As an example I have developed & marketed a new type of digital data for a multi billion dollar business that is in the process of going point & click. My company has produced over 50,000 docks for this application that requires our data for transaction from the Delaware shore to Palm Springs Cal. I do believe that some if not most of the technology I see in you Mag would make the system faster & easier to collect the data required. If you guys or any of the folks that advertise in your Mag. would care to know more please call 239 282 9170

  3. nick says:

    OCX was run badly by Raytheon from day 1, PDR, CDR, etc.

    this news item is no surprise

    AEP upgrade from legacy was not.