NEWS AND NOTES
Blue Water Sailing
May 20, 2009
Don't throw away your paper charts!
GPS could go south as satellites fail, says report
A report just out by the Government Accountability Office(GAO) has revealed significant issues with the future of the GPS world wide system, currently provided free. The report, released at the end of April, is entitled 'Significant Challenges in Sustaining and Upgrading Widely Used Capabilities'.
The GAO was asked to do the study because of the crucial role that GPS plays in national security, apart from the key tool in commercial applications, from Apple's iPhone to all forms of transport. While the air force is in the process of modernizing the system, including the acquisition of GPS satellites and the associated ground control systems, the report casts doubt on their ability to carry out this process in a way that will maintain full efficiency.
Photo: Effect of a Two-Year Delay in GPS III Launches. GAO chart/www,insidegnss.com.
The report, which is very lengthy, goes on to describe how the likely efficiency of the system will drop significantly in the coming years before suitable satellite modernization has taken place. But its warnings are clear and dire — if the Air Force can’t buy and put up new satellites in time, “some military operations and some civilian users could be adversely affected.” From: www.bizjournals.com.
It is uncertain whether the Air Force will be able to acquire new satellites in time to maintain current GPS service without interruption. If not, some military operations and some civilian users could be adversely affected.
* In recent years, the Air Force has struggled to successfully build GPS satellites within cost and schedule goals; it encountered significant technical problems that still threaten its delivery schedule; and it struggled with a different contractor. As a result, the current IIF satellite program has overrun its original cost estimate by about $870 million and the launch of its first satellite has been delayed to November 2009—almost 3 years late.
* Further, while the Air Force is structuring the new GPS IIIA program to prevent mistakes made on the IIF program, the Air Force is aiming to deploy the next generation of GPS satellites 3 years faster than the IIF satellites. GAO’s analysis found that this schedule is optimistic, given the program’s late start, past trends in space acquisitions, and challenges facing the new contractor. Of particular concern is leadership for GPS acquisition, as GAO and other studies have found the lack of a single point of authority for space programs and frequent turnover in program managers have hampered requirements setting, funding stability, and resource allocation.
* If the Air Force does not meet its schedule goals for development of GPS IIIA satellites, there will be an increased likelihood that in 2010, as old satellites begin to fail, the overall GPS constellation will fall below the number of satellites required to provide the level of GPS service that the U.S. government commits to. Such a gap in capability could have wide-ranging impacts on all GPS users, though there are measures the Air Force and others can take to plan for and minimize these impacts.
In addition to risks facing the acquisition of new GPS satellites, the Air Force has not been fully successful in synchronizing the acquisition and development of the next generation of GPS satellites with the ground control and user equipment, thereby delaying the ability of military users to fully utilize new GPS satellite capabilities. Diffuse leadership has been a contributing factor, given that there is no single authority responsible for synchronizing all
procurements and fielding related to GPS, and funding has been diverted from ground programs to pay for problems in the space segment.
DOD and others involved in ensuring GPS can serve communities beyond the military have taken prudent steps to manage requirements and coordinate among the many organizations involved with GPS. However, GAO identified challenges to ensuring civilian requirements and ensuring GPS compatibility with other new, potentially competing global space-based positioning, navigation, and timing systems.
What GAO Recommends:
GAO’s recommendations include that the Secretary of Defense appoint a single authority to oversee development of GPS space, ground control, and user equipment assets, to ensure they are synchronized, well executed, and potential disruptions are minimized. DOD concurred with our recommendations.
For the full report, click here.
Article from GAO: http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-670T
