The 50th Space Wing at Schriever AFB, Colo., completed the transition from the legacy Global Positioning System ground control segment to the new Architecture Evolution Plan ground system last week with no disruption in service to GPS users, reports SSgt. Don Branum. Last month, officials at the Space and Missile Systems Center in Los Angeles explained the transition process, which had been in the works for more than a year. This was a critical conversion that took GPS from a 1970s-based mainframe technology to a distributed computing architecture that will ease future changes. “The control segment is what develops the navigation signal and keeps the timing signal correct,” said Lt. Col. Janet Grondin, SMC GPS operational control segment program manager. She added, “You can’t get that wrong.”
The Air Force and Boeing agreed to a nearly $2.4 billion contract for a new lot of KC-46 aerial tankers on Nov. 21. The deal, announced by the Pentagon, is for 15 new aircraft in Lot 11 at a cost of $2.389 billion—some $159 million per tail.