System Design Review, Engineering Models Demonstrated Last Month

Raytheon tells ANN the company has successfully completed two significant milestones for the US Air Force's next-generation Global Positioning System Control Segment, or GPS OCX, establishing a solid foundation and roadmap to keep the program on track and on schedule.

The Raytheon-led team completed the segment design review and modernized capability engineering model demonstration December 13, 2008.

"These mark major accomplishments for our entire team and significantly burn-down the execution risk on the program," said Bob Canty, Raytheon GPS OCX vice president and program manager. "Our team of industry experts worked seamlessly together to reach and complete these critical tasks and looks forward to meeting all future customer requirements."

The segment design review was a comprehensive review of the team's progress in systems engineering, systems architecture and program management.
Successful completion demonstrates that the design is sufficiently mature and the level of residual risk is acceptable to proceed to the program's next phase. 

In keeping with the "back-to-basics" approach, the team demonstrated the ability to command modernized GPS signals, provide situational awareness and expose data on the network through the modernized capability engineering model demonstration. The Raytheon team also demonstrated time-certain delivery by achieving all model objectives on time and within budget.

Canty added, "Both milestones allowed us to show the customer that we have met their requirements, significantly reduced program risk and are well-positioned to deliver our GPS OCX solution. Our back-to-basics approach to developing our GPS control segment demonstrates our understanding and alignment with the needs of our US Air Force customer."

The Raytheon-led team is on track to complete the remaining program milestones and is working under a $160 million Phase A system design and risk reduction contract. The contract was awarded by the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base, in November 2007 to produce the new control segment for the current and future GPS systems.

The completion of the segment design review and modernized capability engineering model is an accomplishment of Raytheon Company, ITT, The Boeing Company, Infinity Engineering Systems, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, SRI International and Braxton Technologies.

FMI: www.raytheon.com