Mary-Louise Hoffman
Sandy Brown, a vice president at Raytheon Technologies‘ intelligence and space business, said the company aims to help the U.S. Space Force revolutionize mission management and data processing of Global Positioning System III Follow-On satellites by updating the ground control segment for the GPS constellation.
She told Breaking Defense that the Next Generation Operational Control System program will “shift the focus of operations from satellite command and control to basic, user-oriented effects-based operation.”
Raytheon received a $228 million contract in May to update current OCX software to make it compatible with GPS IIIF space vehicles, which Lockheed Martin will build under a potential $7.2 billion contract awarded in September 2018.
Brown noted that the software modernization program will apply a scaled agile framework, a Department of Defense-compliant DevSecOps reference design that will incorporate cybersecurity practices into the updating process.
She added that Raytheon development teams and Space Force personnel will work to align Space Systems Command goals and requirements to efforts being conducted within the company’s space and intelligence unit.
Barbara Baker, senior materiel leader of production corps at SSC’s C2 systems division, said in the joint interview with Brown that the partnership will incorporate an adaptive architecture into OCX Blocks 1 & 2 to evolve the systems to defend against emerging threats.
“The program office is applying lessons learned and leveraging existing processes from the legacy program to aid in program execution to inform the contract and incentive structures, software development approach, data and metrics, and contractor staffing,” Baker added.
