Raytheon announced Tuesday that its industry team has successfully completed a key design review of the Global Positioning System Advanced Control Segment, the next-generation ground control element for the GPS satellite constellation. Nearly 70 industry and Air Force representatives recently held the three-day software specification review at Raytheon’s facility in Aurora, Colo. “We are extremely pleased with the outcome of this important review,” said Bob Canty, Raytheon’s program manager for the control segment, which is dubbed OCX. He added, “The successful software specification review sets the foundation for the preliminary design review scheduled for spring 2011 and is an indicator of the maturity of the software and interface requirements and the operational concept for GPS OCX.” Raytheon is the prime contractor, having won the $886 million OCX contract in February.
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.