A new era of GPS competition
In September, the U.S. Space Force selected four companies – Astranis, Axient, L3Harris and Sierra Space – to submit design concepts for a layer of “Resilient GPS” (R-GPS) aimed at producing smaller, more affordable spacecraft to supplement the existing GPS system.
The news got a second boost Nov. 1 thanks to a media push by Astranis, which heralded the development as an expansion of their business into a new orbit (MEO) and a new type of satellite (PNT). While those are big steps for a company that based its whole reputation on building and operating small telecom satellites in GEO, the significance of the GPS study goes far beyond this one company.
DoD currently relies on GPS satellites from Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Boeing built the GPS-2F series, but withdrew from subsequent competition in 2016, clearing the way for Lockheed to win the latest generation, GPS-3. Lockheed is under contract to build 10 GPS-3 satellites and 22 more advanced GPS-3F satellites. And while technologically the satellites are highly capable, their development was slow – it took 15 years to build 10 satellites, only six of which have launched.
DoD’s study contractors are new faces – none have been primes on a GPS constellation before. The most experienced is arguably L3Harris, which supplied payloads to Lockheed for the GPS-3 fleet as a subcontractor. Curiously, Axient is teamed with “mega-GEO” satellite startup K2 Space on its study contract. Sierra Space, having booked over $1B in satellite orders in recent years says it is “retooling” commercial capacity to focus on defense programs like R-GPS.
The study program shows that DoD’s push to include nontraditional space contractors has extended beyond the Space Development Agency and its flagship PWSA constellation. With a wider pool of companies, DoD is increasing competition and reducing the odds of vendor lock.
DoD, through the R-GPS program, is also replicating SDA’s “spiral development” with what it calls LEAPs, short for Lite Evolving Augmented Proliferation, where every eight satellites add new capabilities. So far three LEAPS are being discussed, each with up to eight satellites.
Lastly, R-GPS shows how other branches of DoD are thinking about disaggregated satellite systems, where strength in numbers takes greater importance than exquisite capabilities. Through R-GPS, the Space Force hopes to have satellites that cost $50-80 million apiece, not the reported $250 million of a GPS-3F satellite.
The next question, naturally, is what other military satellite systems will adopt a proliferated approach? Through SDA, missile warning and Link-16 secure comms are headed in that direction. As of May, the Space Force is also exploring multi-orbit for future narrowband communications. Other military comms networks, notably wideband (WGS) and protected (AEHF) remain GEO-centric but could also see a migration to NGSO orbits if this trend continues.
SOURCE: https://www.spaceforce.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/3914829/