The Pentagon has canceled a ground control system for the U.S. military’s GPS satellite navigation network after the program’s enduring problems “proved intractable,” the U.S. Space Force announced in a press release Monday.
The Global Positioning System Next-Generation Operational Control System, known as OCX, was officially canceled by Pentagon Defense Acquisition Executive Michael Duffy on Friday, April 17, the Space Force said.
The decision to end the OCX program ends a 16-year, multibillion-dollar effort to design, test and deliver a command and control system for the Army’s constellation of GPS navigation satellites. The program included software to handle new signals from the latest generation of GPS satellites, GPS III, which began launching in 2018, as well as modifications to two master control stations and ground monitoring stations around the world.
The Pentagon awarded the OCX contract in 2010 to Raytheon, now known as RTX Corporation, at a cost of $3.7 billion with a timetable for completion in 2016. The budget estimate to complete the program increased to approximately $8 billion, roughly equivalent to the cost of an entire fleet of 30 new GPS satellites.
OCX’s schedule extended a decade longer than anticipated. RTX finally delivered the control system to the Space Force last year, but further tests showed it was still not ready for GPS operations. Ars reported on long-running issues with OCX last month.
“We discovered the problems”
“Regrettably, widespread system issues emerged during testing of OCX’s integration with the broader GPS enterprise,” said Col. Stephen Hobbs, commander of Space Force Mission Delta 31, which operates the GPS constellation. “Despite repeated collaborative approaches by the entire government and contractor team, the challenges of onboarding the system in an operationally relevant timeline proved insurmountable.
“We have discovered problems across a wide range of potential areas that would jeopardize existing GPS military and civilian capabilities,” Hobbs said in a statement.
“RTX is aware of the U.S. government’s decision regarding the GPS OCX program,” an RTX spokesperson said in a statement. “Raytheon delivered the system in 2025 and continues to support the U.S. Space Force in post-delivery activities. We are committed to supporting our customers and will work closely with the government on next steps.”
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