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Lockheed Martin Awarded GPS III

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the turn-off-gp3-get-a-galileo dept.

D Ninja writes "Yesterday, Lockheed Martin was awarded the $1.4 billion Air Force contract to build the next-generation global positioning satellite system. This occurred after a series of delays as the Air Force decided between Lockheed and the competing bidding contractor, Boeing Co. 'GPS III, will give new navigation warfare (NAVWAR) capabilities to shut off GPS service to a limited geographical location while providing GPS to US and allied forces. GPS III will offer significant improvements in navigation capabilities by improving interoperability and jam resistance. The procurement of the GPS III system is planned for multiple blocks, with the GPS IIIA portion currently underway. GPS IIIA includes all of the GPS IIF capability plus up to a ten-fold increase in signal power, a new civil signal compatible with the European Union's Galileo system, and a new spacecraft bus that will allow a growth path to future blocks.'"

2 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Quick translation... by Gat0r30y · · Score: 4, Informative

    Galileo is going at 2 frequencies 1164 to 1214 MHz and 1563 to 1591 MHz. While it looks like (the civilian part) of this version is just centered at the (L2 = 1227.60 MHz) & (L5 = 1176.45 MHz) - so the 1164-1214 civilian GPS units for Galileo should work with the civilian bands for these satellites too. As for the military stuff.... well I couldn't say.

    --
    Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
  2. Re:1.4 billion dollars for what ?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I happen to have done some engineering work on GPS, and I can say that these additions are extremely non-trivial and cannot be done with existing hardware. The way the signals are transmitted must be changed entirely. The good news is that this system will allow for real-time ionospheric distortion mitigation (a problem for any non-DGPS receivers with the current system) and provide enough signal strength that even super-cheap receivers will be very accurate.

    Also, this cost would likely have occurred anyway - the current satellite constellation won't live forever. The satellites will run out of orbital maintenance fuel, or their clocks will begin to drift erratically, and at some point in the foreseeable future, the constellation will lose enough satellites that it will be mostly unusable. So if we'll be launching new ones anyway, why not make them better?

    I also understand your humanitarian question, however, the support that GPS provides in science and education (even though it was and is a military project in the USA) truly does humankind a great service. Oh, and it lets me find good pizza no matter where I am in the city, which is truly humanitarian :-)