GPS 3 Prototype Communicates With GPS Constellation

Lockheed Martin's GPS III Non-Flight Satellite Testbed (GNST), a full-sized, functional GPS III satellite prototype, now at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS), Fla., recently communicated via cross-links with Air Force flight-like hardware simulators for the GPS IIR, GPS IIR-M, and GPS IIF satellites, which make up the bulk of the current GPS satellite constellation. 

Since July 19, the GNST has been at CCAFS, where it has helped test CCAFS’s facilities and pre-launch processes, established remote connectivity and communicated with the GPS Next Generation Operational Control System (OCX), and performed other exercises to further reducing risk and gaining efficiencies, prior the first GPS III flight satellite’s expected delivery to the U.S. Air Force in 2014 and launch in 2015.

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