Too Little, Too Late: GPS May Crash By 2010

According to a new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), an overhaul of the 20-year-old system has been delayed until November, putting it three years behind schedule. The project is also over budget by $870 million from the original cost estimate of $729 million, for a total of approximately $1.6 billion.

"If the Air Force does not meet its schedule goals for development of GPS IIIA satellites, there will be an increased likelihood that in 2010, as old satellites begin to fail, the overall GPS constellation will fall below the number of satellites required to provide the level of GPS service that the U.S. government commits ," the GAO stated in its report.

The problem is blamed in part on the fact that no one single authority is responsible for synchronizing all procurements and fielding related to GPS. In addition, funding has been diverted from ground programs to pay for problems in the space segment of the GPS program, according to the report.

The Air Force has also encountered "significant" technical problems that still threaten its delivery schedule, and has also struggled with a contractor, which was not named in the report.

The GAO said that the time period between the contract award and first launch for GPS IIIA was shorter than most other major space programs it reviewed.

"Though the contractor has had previous experience with GPS, it is likely that the knowledge base will need to be revitalized," the GAO said. "The contractor is also being asked to develop a larger satellite bus to accommodate the future GPS increments and to increase the power of a new military signal by a factor of 10."

The Department of Defense (DOD) develops and operates GPS, and an interdepartmental committee---co-chaired by DOD and the Department of Transportation---manages the US space-based positioning, navigation, and timing infrastructure, which includes GPS. The DOD also provides most of the funding for GPS. The Air Force is responsible for GPS acquisition, according to the report. "The Department of Defense continues to face cost overruns in the billions of dollars, schedule delays adding up to years, and performance shortfalls stemming from programs that began in the 1990s, and after that were poorly structured, managed and overseen," said the GAO. "What sets GPS apart from those programs is that GPS had already been "done" before."

However, the Air Force is not sitting by idly. It has taken steps to structure the new GPS IIIA program to prevent mistakes made on the IIF program. The agency also plans to invest more than $5.8 billion over the next five years in the GPS satellites and ground control segments.

The Air Force is also exercising more government oversight and interaction with the contractor and spending more time at the contractor's site, according to the report.

"Nevertheless, there is still a high risk that the Air Force will not meet its schedule for GPS," the report said.

The GAO did note that the DOD concurred with its recommendations, and stated that it recognized the importance of centralizing authority to oversee the continuing synchronized evolution of the GPS and that it will continue to seek ways to improve civil agency understanding of the DOD requirements process and work to strengthen civil agency participation.