House Pressure seeks bids for ‘Resilient GPS’ satellite tv for pc program

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House Pressure is transferring ahead with plans to deploy smaller, cheaper GPS satellites primarily based on industrial designs so as to add to its present community of bigger navy satellites. 

The House Programs Command earlier this month issued a solicitation via the House Enterprise Consortium (SpEC) for the Resilient International Positioning System (R-GPS) program, in search of revolutionary design ideas.

R-GPS goals to enhance the present 31-satellite GPS constellation with small satellites that may present a subset of main GPS alerts. These alerts will likely be appropriate with each navy and civilian GPS receivers.

This system is restricted to members of the SpEC consortium, a company created to speed up procurements of latest applied sciences. 

A spokesperson for the House Programs Command mentioned R-GPS is just not supposed to switch the present GPS system or the continuing GPS IIIF program. As a substitute, it should function a complementary system, offering an extra layer of resilience for navy, allied and civilian customers.

The House Programs Command plans to pick as much as 5 R-GPS design ideas for additional growth. The small satellites will likely be anticipated to broadcast Course Acquisition (C/A) alerts for navy and civilian use, P(Y) code for navy receivers, and M-code for safer navy purposes. 

Nevertheless, the House Pressure mentioned it’s open to different options that would improve resiliency and introduce new technological developments. 

Preliminary awards for the R-GPS program are slated for fall 2024, with design ideas anticipated in early 2025. The House Pressure has set a goal to have eight area automobiles obtainable for launch by 2027 or 2028.

Issues about GPS vulnerabilities

This program comes as a part of a broader effort to guard and improve GPS capabilities, which have turn out to be essential infrastructure for each navy operations and civilian purposes. Latest conflicts, such because the one in Ukraine, have highlighted the dangers of GPS jamming and spoofing by adversaries.

R-GPS is one in all two packages being fast-tracked beneath the “Fast Begin” authority, a brand new initiative permitted within the Fiscal 2024 Nationwide Protection Authorization Act which licensed this system in a piece known as “Speedy Response to Emergent Expertise Developments or Threats.”

Nevertheless, this system is going through skepticism from some lawmakers. The Home Appropriations Committee in its 2025 protection spending invoice questioned the rationale for Resilient GPS and denied a request to realign $117 million from different accounts to fund this system, citing considerations about its estimated $1 billion value over 5 years.

 The Home Appropriations protection subcommittee directed the Pentagon’s Price Evaluation and Program Analysis workplace to evaluate whether or not Resilient GPS is the most suitable choice for enhancing positioning, navigation and timing capabilities.

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