Washington: US Department of Defence (DoD) long-awaited M-Code secure channel for GPS signals is making slow but steady progress toward becoming a reality, with a fourth GPS III satellite slated to launch next month and final upgrades to the Air Force’s OCS ground control stations.
The highly encrypted M-Code to protect GPS signals from jamming and spoofing currently is enabled on 22 GPS satellites of various generations; 24 are needed to bring the M-Code to full operational capability.
“Right now we’ve got 22; SV-4 makes 23; and once you reach that magic number of 24, that gives you global M-Code coverage,” said Chris Pettigrew, spokesperson for GPS prime contractor Lockheed Martin.
Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) announced August 6 that the fourth Global Positioning System III satellite, Space Vehicle-4 (SV-4), was delivered to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on July 14, where it will undergo pre-launch preparations. This includes integration with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, which also was used to launch GPS SV-3 on June 30.
The delivery of the fourth GPS III satellite “brings us another step closer in advancing the GPS constellation with more capable satellites,” said Col. Edward Byrne, SMC’s Medium Earth Orbit Space Systems Division chief.
According to a July one SMC briefing to the independent National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Advisory Board, the launch of GPS III SV-4 is slated for “no earlier than” Sept. 30. SV-5 was “declared available for launch” on May 7, added the briefing slides, presented by Lt. Col. Ken McDougall, of the PNT Mission Integration office at SMC.
SMC also announced that on June 27 the Space Force took “a major step toward operational acceptance” of the M-Code, with Lockheed Martin’s completion of the M-Code Early Use (MCEU) hardware and software upgrade package for the GPS Operational Control System (OCS).
The upgrades were installed at the Master Control Station at Schriever AFB , and the Alternate Master Control Stations at Vandenberg AFB — the two major facilities for command and control of the GPS constellation.
