System prevented broadcast of corrupt navigation, timing data.
The GPS Operational Control System’s launch and checkout system will control launch and early orbit operations and the on-orbit checkout of all GPS III satellites. (Image: Raytheon)
Raytheon Company’s GPS Next-Generation Operational Control System, known as GPS OCX, has completed several cybersecurity vulnerability assessments that tested the system’s ability to defend against both internal and external cyber threats, the company said.
GPS OCX, based at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado, prevented the broadcast of corrupt navigation and timing data in all tests, bolstering the program’s readiness for the GPS III launch in December, the company added.
“We’ve built a layered defense and implemented all information assurance requirements for the program into this system,” said Dave Wajsgras, president of Raytheon Intelligence, Information and Services. “We’re cognizant that the cyber threat will always change, so we’ve built GPS OCX to evolve and to make sure it’s always operating at this level of protection.”
GPS OCX is the enhanced ground control segment of a U.S. Air Force-led effort to modernize America’s GPS system. The program has implemented 100 percent of the Department of Defense’s 8500.2 Defense in Depth information assurance standards without waivers, giving it the highest level of cybersecurity protections of any DoD space system.
The first tests took place April 2-13, and were led by a contracted “blue team” that aimed to breach the system from within its information assurance boundary.
The second round of tests took place May 16-20, and were led by an Air Force “red team” of cyber-penetration testers who tried to breach the system’s IA boundary from outside. The system worked as designed, validating it is secure.
The assessments took place on the launch and checkout system, GPS OCX Block 0, which was delivered to the U.S. Air Force in 2017 as a fully cyber-secure satellite ground system.
Raytheon Company’s GPS OCX program is ready for the U.S. Air Force’s launch of the first modernized GPS satellite later this year.
Raytheon’s GPS Next-Generation Operational Control System, known as GPS OCX, is in its final software development phase. This phase focuses on increasing automation and building controls for both L1C, a civilian GPS signal aimed at increasing international access, and M-code, a military GPS signal with better anti-jam capability.
Once complete, the team will begin integration and testing to keep the program on track for full system delivery in June 2021.
The GPS Operational Control System’s launch and checkout system will control launch and early orbit operations and the on-orbit checkout of all GPS III satellites. (Image: Raytheon)
“Our team has two primary goals this year,” said Dave Wajsgras, president of Raytheon intelligence, information and services. “We will support the U.S. Air Force’s GPS III launch this fall and complete the software build for the full operational system by year’s end.”
GPS OCX is the enhanced ground control segment of a U.S. Air Force-led effort to modernize America’s GPS system. The program is implementing 100 percent of DODI 8500.2 “Defense in Depth” information assurance standards without waivers, giving it the highest level of cybersecurity protections of any DoD space system, Raytheon said.
For protection against future cyber threats, the system’s open architecture allows it to integrate new capabilities and signals as they become available.
Because GPS OCX can manage nearly twice the satellites of the current system, it will increase signal strength in hard-to-reach areas like dense cities and mountainous terrain.
Also, advanced automation will free crews to focus on mission-critical tasks such as updating satellite positions more often.
New tech development approach speeds progress on improved GPS
Raytheon’s use of technology development best practices — DevOps — and its completion of a systems engineering milestone are driving progress on the GPS Next-Generation Operational Control System (OCX), according to the contractor.
Raytheon has completed its latest major systems engineering milestone for the final software iteration, a marker of the progress achieved by the GPS OCX program course corrections implemented over the last two years.
The milestone provided extra rigor and accountability around the systems engineering for the rest of the GPS OCX program, Raytheon said. It also enables more efficient completion of the remaining software development and associated cyber protection capabilities that will harden the system against hackers, double GPS accuracy, enhance its availability, and eventually replace the stop-gap and patching measures currently used on the legacy GPS ground system.
DevOps. The OCX team reduced development cycle times to create more efficient and effective software development by using a commercial best practice called DevOps. DevOps combines commercial cloud technologies, new automation and software development processes.
This is the first use of DevOps in a large-scale U.S. Department of Defense acquisition program.
“The recent milestones achieved for OCX demonstrate our resolve to meet long-term schedule commitments and keep our momentum in 2017,” said Dave Wajsgras, president of Raytheon’s Intelligence, Information and Services business. “These software development innovations are helping to drive OCX capabilities, the replacement of the legacy GPS ground system, and significant enhancements to GPS overall.”
The U.S. Air Force-led GPS Modernization Program will yield new positioning, navigation and timing capabilities for U.S. military and civilian users across the globe.
Developed by Raytheon under contract to the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, GPS OCX is replacing the current GPS operational control system and will support the launch of the GPS III satellites. The new system will provide enhanced performance, the effective use of modern civil and military signals and secure information-sharing with unprecedented cyber protection.
The I-want-free-advice syndrome was once called the “Doctor Syndrome” or “Expert Syndrome.” I have recently heard it referred to as the “unsolicited advice” syndrome, because there is a new version that involves shaming the expert in to giving free advice.
Occasionally those of us with expertise in an area of interest, which certainly include doctors and lawyers, are faced with tough decisions involving rules, regulations, laws and conflicts of interest.
We are all guilty of these ethical violations in one way or another. On an airplane you discover your seatmate is a doctor of osteopathic medicine; not five minutes have gone by and you are telling him or her about all your aches and pains and seeking advice. My daughter, a clinical psychologist, says this frequently happens to her, but legally it is not a syndrome, although it could certainly be described as a phenomenon.
Regardless of the nomenclature, the newest wrinkle goes like this, as stated by a congressman at our table at a fundraiser I attended recently, when he was asked about the troubled OCX program (Next Generation GPS Operational Control System) and GPS funding in general. “Well, I don’t know much about GPS or navigating, but this is what I know about OCX and GPS. I am sure Don will correct me if I am wrong…”
I mention this phenomenon because for position, navigation and timing (PNT) issues, it is growing at an alarming rate. For instance, my 10-20 emails per day asking about PNT issues have grown over the past few weeks more than tenfold. I perceive that many of you are confused and concerned about the future of GPS, PNT and GNSS in general.
With the House Armed Services Committee deleting more than $420 million from the GPS budget line for OCX in the 2017 budget and canceling funding for certain Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (AT&L) positions dealing with acquisition, there are all kinds of rumors and innuendo floating around. [Editor’s Note: the Senate did not make the same deletions, so this must be worked out in congressional committee meetings before the end of September]. So, I went out and formally asked the experts (GPS Directorate, Lockheed Martin and Harris Corp among others) what they think the future holds for GPS. Here is what I learned…
Artist’s concept of the nextgen GPS III satellite (courtesy of the USAF).
GPS III Spacecraft. According to Colonel Steve Whitney (USAF), the director of the Global Positioning Systems Directorate, Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC), Air Force Space Command (AFSPC), Los Angeles AFB, California: “The GPS III program is actively engaged in production of the first eight [GPS III] satellites (SV), while proceeding ahead with contracting actions for the ninth and tenth spacecraft. “
Colonel Whitney went on to explain, “We have had several notable successes over the last year, including delivery of the first two navigation payloads [from Harris Corp] and completion of the first spacecraft’s environmental tests (acoustic, thermal vacuum and electromagnetic compatibility). As we prepare to accept delivery of the first spacecraft, the directorate is gearing up for the Mission Readiness Campaign and satellite launch.”
I spoke independently with representatives from both Harris Corp and Lockheed Martin, and they expressed the same opinions. Work is progressing toward a launch of the first GPS III SV hopefully sometime in 2017.
Of course, all of the companies mentioned and many others are also involved in the follow-on production of GPS III satellites known officially, oddly enough, as the:
GPS III SV11 + Follow-On Production Phase One (1). According to Colonel Whitney, “The GPS SV11+ program is implementing a phased acquisition approach to determine first if viable alternate sources exist for a production-ready spacecraft. We successfully awarded three Phase 1 contracts on 5 May 2016, and are working with all three vendors to inform our follow-on approach.”
For those of you who have not been keeping up, the three Phase 1 contracts were in the amount of $5M to each company. LMCO is included in the competition and was one of the three companies. To go into a bit more detail, the three GPS III awards are firm-fixed-price contracts that are not-to-exceed $6 million; the base contract plus two $500,000 options. The base contract period of performance is 26 months, and each option extends that time by six months for a total period of just over three years or 38 months.
At the end of the competition, the GPS Directorate will award one GPS III Phase 1 Production Readiness Feasibility Assessment contract to one or more of the three companies:
Colonel Whitney’s boss, Lt. Gen. Sam Greaves, who is the Space and Missile Systems Center commander and Air Force program executive officer (PEO) for space, said: “Industry told us they were ready to compete for the GPS III space vehicles. We look forward to working with Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman to assess the feasibility of a follow-on, competitive production contract.”
The USAF has issued an artist’s concept of the GPS III satellite, but seriously, I have listened to the proposals from all three companies in detail, and the proposals are all so radically different that the picture is just that, an artist’s concept, it may not even be close to reality.
Artist’s concept of the nextgen GPS III satellite (courtesy of the USAF).
Certainly, $5-6M is not much money in the scheme of things, certainly not enough to design and build a GPS satellite from scratch, but it is a show of good faith on behalf of the U.S. government, proving they are serious in their search for a new and improved PNT satellite in the GPS III family.
Next-Generation Operational Control System (OCX). The original OCX contract was awarded for somewhere slightly south of $900M for a six-year total effort to deliver a new Full Operational Capability (FOC) ground control system for all GPS satellites except the long-lived GPS IIAs. The federal government, having watched programs like OCX go south before, took the Raytheon bid and quietly doubled it and assured everyone they had the program well in hand. The government assured us time and again that OCX would never breach Nunn- McCurdy levels as they planned for double the cost. Smart move, but OCX costs finally reached double the original estimate plus 25 percent, which triggered the Nunn-McCurdy breach on June 30.
Now Raytheon and the government have until October to decide whether to continue with the OCX program. However, Colonel Whitney and the folks at SMC remain confident; he kindly describes the current status of OCX this way: “The OCX team continues to pursue a restructured plan approved by the Defense Acquisition Executive [USD (AT&L)] and will hold its next deep dive with the Secretary of the Air Force [SECAF] and USD (AT&L) in early July [maybe this week]. Raytheon is driving for Functional Qualification Testing of the GPS III Launch and Checkout System (GPS LCS and OCX Block 0) in August 2016.”
My sources tell me that a realistic date for OCX FOC, based purely on past performance, software issues and cyber-security concerns, is 2023 with a total cost of $4.2B. This may all be academic if OCX cannot clear the Nunn-McCurdy hurdles.
The interesting story here is that there are alternatives. This brings us to the…
GPS III Contingency Operations or Cops, which Colonel Whitney described this way when I asked him about it. “We [USAF, SMC] awarded the GPS III Contingency Operations effort on 3 February 2016 on an expedited basis with the task of delivering the capability to put on-orbit GPS III spacecraft into operations, providing legacy mission capabilities. We successfully completed the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) on 11 May 2016 and are on-track for Critical Design Review (CDR) in November 2016.”s
What the Colonel meant to say — my words, not his — is that we (the U.S government) are finally hedging our bets. Just in case OCX does not come to fruition, both for launch and operations, we know we need to put a GPS III satellite on orbit soon so we can check it out before all the satellites are produced and sitting in a warehouse and we discover a major anomaly. We are running out of time.
If all of the GPS satellites are produced (and there are only six or eight more to be built under the current contract depending on the future award schedule), and not one of them has been launched, then the program is in trouble. If LMCO does not win the follow-on contract, then the GPS III production line will be shut down at LMCO and experts scattered to the winds. Spare parts for a satellite in storage will be hard if not impossible to find, much less repair or install. If the first GPS III satellite is not launched until after production ceases and a major flaw or anomaly is discovered, then the government’s options are slim to none.
To prevent a worst-case scenario, the government must launch a GPS III satellite, and soon. Certainly a date in 2016 is preferable, but a 2017 date will suffice, according to my sources. However that is doubtful with an OCX-based launch program that has yet to launch a satellite.
Kudos to the government for looking at OCX alternatives, and for looking down the road at…
Military GPS User Equipment or MGUE. Colonel Whitney, who successfully ran this program for several years before becoming the overall GPS SPO director, knowledgeably described the current MGUE effort this way. “We have taken delivery of the first GPS Military GPS User Equipment (MGUE) Final Test Articles this past month. These articles are going through initial checkout in the test labs as we prepare for integration into our lead platforms, like the B-2 Bomber.”
Approving the final test articles is a big deal for MGUE because it not only puts the products in the hands of operational integrators and users, but opens the door for a multitude of changes necessary to incorporate the latest up-to-date technology. This technology hopefully includes the use of GNSS signals and capabilities as well as other PNT signals and augmentations that can now be incorporated.
By the way, the congressman at the fundraiser dinner that I mentioned at the beginning did a credible job, but managed to get most of it wrong. But then, congress has so much more on its plate than GPS. That’s why the real experts need to make sure they keep everyone informed.
Wooldridge and Ramo on the cover of Time Magazine, 1957.
Simon Ramo
I hate to end on a sad note, but I must acknowledge the passing of a legend in the aerospace industry. Dr. Simon “Si” Ramo, who I knew well and worked with for many years early in my career, passed away on June 27 at the age of 103.
Si, who held two doctorates, was already a leader in the aerospace industry when I was born, and I credit many of his well-known books (he was a prolific author) for drawing many a young person to space, rockets, the dynamics of space launch, and engineering.
Dr. “Si” Simon Ramo
Si cofounded TRW Inc. in the late 1950s by taking two companies — Ramo-Wooldridge and Thompson Products — and leading them into the ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) world. He was a tireless promoter of the space industry. The world will not soon see another character, gifted leader and entrepreneur like Si Ramo.
Until next time, happy navigating, and remember: GPS is brought to you free of charge by the United States Air Force.
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.
Raytheon has installed the first operational hardware for the GPS Next Generation Operational Control System, known as GPS OCX. The new ground command and control system will significantly modernize U.S. GPS capabilities and manage the next generation of GPS satellites. Installation of the Launch and Checkout System (LCS) hardware was completed in early July at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado, the eventual home for the new GPS OCX Master Control Station.
“Installation of the initial OCX hardware at Schriever AFB represents a key milestone for the program, demonstrating further progress toward next year’s acceptance of the OCX Launch and Checkout System for the GPS III satellites,” said Matt Gilligan, vice president of Navigation and Environmental Solutions at Raytheon Intelligence, Information and Services. “Raytheon is committed to delivering a modernized, secure GPS ground system to support the millions of U.S. military, civil and commercial users of GPS worldwide,” added Gilligan.
GPS OCX will deliver a host of new capabilities, including automation for operational efficiencies, improved accuracy, interoperability with geo-positioning and navigation systems of other nations for better global coverage, and a cybersecurity architecture that provides unprecedented levels of protection. The Launch and Checkout System delivers a large subset of the full OCX ground system capabilities, and establishes the OCX cyber-hardened infrastructure for additional mission applications that will be added to complete the Block 1 capability.
U.S. warfighters use GPS services to support air, land, sea and space missions. GPS is also used by millions of people to enhance daily life activities, including personal navigation. It’s also required for industry and businesses and is essential to support safety-of-life missions for air traffic controllers and emergency responders. The modernized ground system will bring new capabilities and precision to the GPS enterprise.
