The Pentagon has canceled the US Space Force’s ground control system for the US military’s GPS satellite navigation network after the program’s persistent problems “proved insurmountable.” said in a press release on monday.
The Global Positioning System Next Generation Operations Management System, known by the acronym OCX, was officially canceled on Friday, April 17, by Michael Duffy, the Pentagon’s executive director of defense acquisition, the Space Force said.
The decision to end the OCX program ends a 16-year, multibillion-dollar effort to design, test and deliver a command and control system for the military’s GPS navigation satellites. The program consisted of software to handle new signals from the latest generation of GPS III satellites, which began to be launched in 2018, two main control stations and modifications to ground monitoring stations around the world.
The Pentagon in 2010 awarded the OCX contract to Raytheon, also known as RTX Corporation, with a schedule to complete in 2016 at a cost of $3.7 billion. Budget projections to complete the program have risen to about $8 billion, roughly the cost of an entire fleet of 30 new GPS satellites.
The schedule for OCX has been extended ten years longer than expected. RTX finally delivered its control system to the Space Force last year, but subsequent testing showed it was still not ready for GPS operations. Ars reports last month about lingering problems with OCX.
“We discovered the problems”
“Unfortunately, extensive system problems arose during testing of the OCX integrated with the larger GPS enterprise,” said Col. Stephen Hobbs, the Space Force’s Mission Delta 31 commander who operates the GPS constellation. “Despite multiple joint approaches by the entire government and contractor team, the challenges of getting the system up and running on an operationally relevant timeline have been insurmountable.
“We have identified issues that would put existing GPS military and civilian capabilities at risk across a wide range of capability domains,” Hobbs said in a statement.
“RTX is aware of the US government’s decision regarding the GPS OCX program,” an RTX spokesperson said in a statement. “Raytheon delivered the system in 2025 and continues to support the US Space Force in post-delivery activities. We remain committed to supporting our customers and will work closely with the government on next steps.”
