News
August 09, 2017
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. Lockheed Martin and the U.S. Air Force have begun the process of installing upgraded receivers containing software-defined radio (SDR) technology to help the U.S. Air Force maintain the accuracy of Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite signals; three of the six planned receivers developed by Lockheed Martin are now online. GPS monitoring stations are globally dispersed fixed-position sites that monitor GPS satellite signals and help maintain their navigation and positioning accuracy for users around the world.
The first new Monitor Station Technology Improvement Capability (MSTIC) receiver went live at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, in June 2017; the improvements were then rolled out to two more Air Force observation stations, one on Kujalein Atoll (Marshall Islands) and the other in Hawaii. See the article : Billions of people still lack high-speed internet. This S.F. company is building satellites to change that. These upgrades to GPS monitoring stations from early 1990s technology are part of an overall effort to modernize and maintain the current GPS ground control system known as the operational control segment of the architecture evolution plan.
Vinny Sica, vice president and general manager of Mission Solutions for Lockheed Martin, said, “The new MSTIC receiver’s software-defined radio technology will replace the legacy hardware-based Monitor Station Receiver Element (MSRE) ASIC. [application-specific integrated circuit] a platform originally implemented nearly two decades ago. MSTIC uses off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware without the need for custom firmware. The standard interfaces and inherent configurability of the architecture simplify maintenance and enable MSTIC software to migrate to new hardware platforms as commercial vendors increase processing power, improve reliability and improve cybersecurity.”
The US Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center’s Global Positioning Systems Directorate has awarded a contract to upgrade MSTIC. The Air Force Space Command’s 2nd Space Operations Squadron (2SOPS), based at Shriver Air Force Base in Colorado, manages and operates the GPS constellation for both civilian and military users. Upgrades to the remaining three Air Force GPS monitoring stations are expected to be completed by the end of 2017.
Featured companies
Comments are closed.