Raytheon Company announced Jan. 8 that it had “successfully completed two significant milestones” for the Air Force’s next-generation GPS control segment, known as GPS OCX. The Raytheon-led team, which is vying against a Northrop Grumman-led team to build OCX, completed the segment design review and modernized capability engineering model demonstration last month. “These mark major accomplishments for our entire team and significantly burn-down the execution risk on the program,” said Bob Canty, Raytheon GPS OCX vice president and program manager. He added that completion of both milestones shows that “our back-to-basics approach to developing our GPS control segment demonstrates our understanding and alignment with the needs of our US Air Force customer.” Both Raytheon and Northrop received a $160 million, 18-month Phase A system design and risk reduction contracts in November 2007. Last year, after completing an earlier set of reviews, a Northrop official noted that the Air Force is being very thorough and “asking hundreds of detailed questions.”
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.