WASHINGTON — Frank Calvelli, outgoing assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration, says his biggest regret is that he was unable to shepherd the long-delayed upgraded ground system for the GPS satellite constellation.
In an exclusive interview with Breaking Defense on Monday, he said the Next-Generation Operational Control System (OCX) program “has made progress over the last two, two-and-a-half years, [but] it’s not as fast as I had hoped it had been.
“I think they’re going to get there, and it’s probably within the next year, but I would like to have seen OCX get transitioned to operations during my tour,” Calvelli added.
In a September 2024 report by the Government Accountability Office, Space Force officials said they now expect operational acceptance of GPS in December 2025 (if no new problems crop up).
OCX, under development by RTX Space (formerly Raytheon) for nigh on 15 years, is needed to allow some 700 weapon systems across the US military to fully access the encrypted M-code GPS signal that will be harder for adversaries to jam. OCX Block 3F, which is the final planned version of the update, will be needed to allow Space Force Guardians to operate the GPS Follow-On, or GPS IIIF, constellation, currently expected to begin launching in 2027. GPS IIIF will sport improved cybersecurity, a laser retroreflector to increase tracking accuracy, and a nuclear detonation detector, among other enhancements.
“OCX is the linchpin. We can’t really do anything [without it],” Calvelli said.
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On the upside, he said, Space Systems Command (SSC), the primary acquisition command for the Space Force, has “accelerated” OCX operational testing after a program revamp in October.
“One of the things that I hated that they were doing from day one was, they were going to sign off and do what’s called the DD250 before they really went hot heavy into testing with operators,” Calvelli explained — with DD250 being a form that signals government acceptance of a good or service. “I’d never seen that before in my career, where the government accepts something that hasn’t really been fully tested. …You never want to accept something until you’ve actually had the operators actually test drive it and find all the bugs”
The October restructuring, Calvelli said, halted the acceptance process and instead moved forward operational testing.
“And so far, we’re seeing the payoff,” he added.
Calvelli stressed that GPS is vital not just to warfighters, but to the nation writ large — and advocated for continued financial support for both the main constellation of 35 satellites (31 active and four spares), as well as the planned “resilient” constellation in medium Earth orbit.
“GPS is a fantastic system. We’re always going to be building it. … And the Lockheed team is doing a wonderful job with the spacecraft. I would argue, though, that 35 spacecraft on orbit isn’t that many, and that you would really like to make that [constellation] more resilient. You’d like to see a smaller set of satellites that could be proliferated,” he said.
“I mean, if you think about it, GPS is almost like national infrastructure, right?,” Calvelli added. “[W]e pushed really hard here for a resilient GPS program. We used the ‘quick start’ authority to actually do some studies, that [now are] under contract, underway, today. And I hope that Congress will support the continuation of resilient GPS, because I think that not having a backup to GPS is is not a good thing for the nation.”