Air Force readies contracts for advanced GPS receivers

The Air Force, which has transmitted advanced jam-resistant signals for military users from certain GPS satellites since 2005, next month will kick off meetings with developers of next-generation receivers capable of picking up those signals, planners recently confirmed.

Brig. Gen. James Haywood, director of requirements for the Air Force Space Command, gave 2016 as the likely time for initial fielding of the user equipment that can pick up the military anti-jam signal, called M-code, when he described it in October at a meeting of the multiagency National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Board.

Security for the M-code signal features encryption that is stronger than that for the older military code and will provide "phenomenal security for decades to come," according to an article in Inside GNSS magazine.

The Air Force contracts for development of GPS satellites in series or blocks to replace older satellites as they age in orbit, with each generation providing new capabilities to a constellation that requires at least 24 satellites to provide precise precision and navigation information.

The Air Force launched the first satellite with M-code in 2005, a block IIR bird built by Lockheed Martin Corp., with the advanced anti-jam code incorporated in a total of eight satellites now in orbit. M-code also is featured in 12 Block IIF satellites contracted to Boeing Co., which launched the first satellite in that series this May.

Lockheed Martin will build 24 GPS IIIs that include the M-code signal under a $1.4 billion contract awarded in May 2008, with first launch scheduled for 2014.

The GPS III satellites will broadcast M-code in both a whole Earth beam used by the IIR and IIF satellites as well as a spot beam that is 100 times more powerful and focused on an area with a 125-mile radius, which helps units engaged in combat operations faced with intensive jamming.

The Air Force Global Positioning System Wing at the Los Angeles Air Force Base Space and Missile System Center in 2006 awarded design and development contracts to L-3Communications, Raytheon Co. and Rockwell Collins Inc. for next-generation GPS Modernized User Equipment. On Jan. 11, 2011, the wing will meet with these companies to start production of receivers to serve air, ground and maritime users.

The GPS Wing said it also wants to develop handheld receivers for ground forces, as well as systems that can be used in precision guided munitions. The Air Force has budgeted $9.428 million for development and production of advanced GPS receivers from 2009 through 2015. The wing did not say when it expected to award the next-generation GPS receiver contract.