U.S. Air Force Launching a GPS Satellite Building Contest
17 May 2016The contest is between three prominent production companies who will build the new GPS satellites,: Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Boeing.
This three-way contest is being held by the U.S. Air Force in order to work on new GPS 3 satellites. Billions of dollars are at play here, with just one of the firm’s winning the opportunity to build the final GPS satellites. The winner will be chosen to build up to 22 next-generation GPS satellites.
Each of the firms receives up to $6 million dollars to try their hand at producing the new GPS 3 satellite. Following the contest, the U.S. Air Force will choose just one firm who is going to produce all of the following 22 GPS next-generation satellites.
According to Lieutenant General Samuel Graves of the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, they are ready to work with the winning firm. He said in a statement:
“Industry told us they were ready to compete for the GPS 3 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.”
Boeing previously worked on satellites for the U.S. Air Force until 2008 when Lockheed Martin took over all GPS manufacturing projects. There are negotiations for Lockheed Martin to build an additional two satellites during the summer, in addition to the other 32 that were in the original contract. However, there have been issues with the satellite’s navigation payload, which was originally developed by Exelis and now owned by Harris. This has gotten the GPS project behind schedule by over two years, so the first of the new GPS 3 satellites won’t be launched until 2017.
Due to the delay, the cost of the satellites has increased to $4.4 billion from $4.1 billion. This increase and delay is what inspired the idea of a contest by the U.S. Air Force, where Boeing and Northrop Grumman have a chance to compete against Lockheed in order to win the GPS contract. If one of the other firms out-performs Lockheed, they will win the contract for the remaining GPS satellites.
Besides providing timing, tracking, and navigation functions to U.S. civilian, commercial and military users, the new GPS 3 satellites will have a search-and-rescue signal, a nuclear detonation detection system, and other updates.
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