Raytheon passes first qualification milestone for enhanced GPS testing

Raytheon announced on Tuesday that it had successfully passed the first qualification milestone for testing the U.S. Air Force’s new Global Positioning System Next Generation Operational Control System (GPS OCX), an enhanced version of the GPS that millions rely on every day.

The Configuration Item Qualification Test (CIQT) was achieved using the GPS OCX’s Launch and Checkout System (LCS0 that is designed to provide launch and early orbit checkout capabilities for the modernized GPS III satellites and to implement approximately 77 percent of the cyber security capabilities for the OCX program.

“The completion of this test milestone validates the maturity of the OCX launch and checkout system,” Bill Sullivan, the director of the GPS OCX program at Raytheon, said. “As a result of strong collaboration with the Air Force, we were able to demonstrate the system’s performance and increase confidence in the program’s path ahead.”

The LCS CIQT took place a month before the planned schedule date, which was set in the middle of 2015 by experts at Raytheon and the U.S. Air Force.

The success of the program has cleared the way for the next stage of testing to take place, which will be the Factory Qualification Test, which is projected to take place this summer.