Air Force picks contractor to enhance GPS ground control

Raytheon Co. has won an initial contract from the Air Force worth $886 million to develop a new element of the Global Positioning System that will improve the accuracy of information from GPS satellites.

The contract represents the first two development blocks of the advanced control segment (OCX), which will have a significant impact on GPS capabilities, Raytheon said in a statement today.

The OCX system will include anti-jam capabilities and improved security, accuracy and reliability and will be based on a modern service-oriented architecture to integrate government and industry open-system standards.

The OCX will dramatically affect GPS command, control and mission capabilities and make it easier for the operations team to run the current GPS Block II and all future GPS satellites, the statement said.

The GPS, a satellite-based radio navigation system for the military and the public, comprises three major segments: the user segment, the space segment, and the control segment, which includes a master control station and ground antennas.

"The OCX concept was created to separate the control and space segments," said Bob Canty, GPS OCX vice president and program manager for Raytheon. "Technologies were evolving so rapidly and were so critical to execution that specialized skills were needed. The GPS wing saw the same need for specialized expertise on GPS OCX."

Raytheon’s teammates include Boeing Co., ITT, Braxton Technologies, Infinity Systems Engineering and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The contract was awarded by the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles Air Force Base.