Article Posted on : - Jul 16, 2013

The US Air Force and Lockheed Martin are building the next generation satellite system known as GPS III. A Lockheed Martin photo.

DENVER (BNS): US defence major Lockheed Martin is preparing to install the navigation, communication, and hosted payload antenna assemblies for the first satellite of the next generation Global Positioning System, known as GPS III.

The antennas will be installed on the first GPS III space vehicle (SV 01), which Lockheed Martin will deliver to the US Air Force on schedule, "flight-ready," in 2014.

The new antennas for GPS III SV 01 will provide the satellite's capability to send and/or receive data for earth-coverage and military earth-coverage navigation; a UHF crosslink for inter-satellite data transfer; telemetry, tracking and control for satellite-ground communications; and data acquisition and communication for the nuclear detection system hosted payload.

The antenna designs enable three to eight times greater anti-jamming signal power to be broadcast to military users across the globe when compared to previous GPS generations, the Company said.

GPS III is a critically important programme for the Air Force, affordably replacing aging GPS satellites in orbit, while improving capability to meet the evolving demands of military, commercial and civilian users.

The satellite will deliver three times better accuracy, include enhancements which extend spacecraft life 25 percent further than the prior GPS block, and a new civil signal designed to be interoperable with international global navigation satellite systems.

The production of the first GPS III satellite continues on schedule. Recent testing of the SV 01 bus - the portion of the space vehicle that carries mission payloads and hosts them in orbit - assured that all bus subsystems are functioning normally and that they are ready for final integration with the satellite's navigation payload.

This milestone follows February's successful initial power on of the SV 01 spacecraft bus, which demonstrated the electrical-mechanical integration, validated the satellite's interfaces and led the way for functional electrical hardware-software integration testing.

Lockheed Martin is currently under contract for production of the first four GPS III satellites (SV 01-04), and has received advanced procurement funding for long-lead components for the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth satellites (SV 05-08).