US: Raytheon Intelligence and Information Systems has been awarded a change order worth as much as $8.5 million to assure a new GPS military signal works with the satellite navigation constellation’s next-generation ground segment. The work on the GPS Operational Control Segment (OCX) under the contract modification is specifically on the M-code implementation, the announcement said. M-code is the new highly secure, anti-jam signal designed for the GPS 3 constellation. The current GPS ground control system does not have M-code capability.
OCX is designed to work with the advanced GPS 3 positioning, navigation and timing satellites, slated to start launching in 2015, and also will be backward compatible with existing GPS satellites.
Source: Spacenews
