The CBO is proposing to kill GPS IIIB and IIIC

[macpacheco]

http://www.gpsworld.com/defense/news/congressional-budget-office-issues-report-gps-defense-12261

Sad, sad possibility, the congressional budget office is proposing
killing GPS IIIB/C, arguing the new features aren't essential for
military purposes.

Given the certain budget crunch coming, studies are being done
everywhere to cut costs. Hopefully GPS will be spared, as it launch
policy has already saved hundreds of millions of dollars yearly.

It will be very sad if that happens. Perhaps the FAA can weigh in with
some numbers on the savings GPS IIIB/C will bring on the aviation
side.

The best option is the other way around, skip IIIA manufacturing, and
go straight to IIIB.

On another note, Galileo navigation signals should be available by
late next week for testing, fingers crossed.

Marcelo Pacheco

[HIPAR]

On Nov 4, 7:33*pm, macpacheco > wrote:
> http://www.gpsworld.com/defense/news/congressional-budget-office-issu...
>
> ...
> The best option is the other way around, skip IIIA manufacturing, and
> go straight to IIIB.
> ...
>>

If the program really needs to be restructured I'd agree with that.
The crosslinks of IIIB add so much utility maintaining the
constellation. That's a benefit for every user class.

But, the USAF touts this procurement as a 'Back to the Basics'
approach. That philosophy resists changing requirements after the
design has been approved. That's (partly) how GPS IIF got into severe
programmatic difficulties.

Then there are 'Color of Money' issues. For those who haven't been
evolved with DoD funding, funds are allocated along lines ranging
from basic R&D to procurement of approved materiel. The first few
IIIA satellites are funded with R&D funds and there's a legal
requirement to not cross these funding lines by spending in an
unauthorized manner.

Notwithstanding programmatic issues, restructuring would delay
delivery of the IIIB satellites allowing OCX to phase into the overall
modernization schedule. I suppose it can be 'spun' that way.

--- CHAS

[macpacheco]

On Nov 4, 11:00*pm, HIPAR > wrote:
> On Nov 4, 7:33*pm, macpacheco > wrote:
>
> >http://www.gpsworld.com/defense/news/congressional-budget-office-issu...
>
> > ...
> > The best option is the other way around, skip IIIA manufacturing, and
> > go straight to IIIB.
> > ...
>
> If the program really needs to be restructured I'd agree with that.
> The crosslinks of IIIB add so much utility maintaining the
> constellation. *That's a benefit for every user class.
>
> But, the USAF touts this procurement as a 'Back to the Basics'
> approach. *That philosophy resists changing requirements after the
> design has been approved. *That's (partly) how GPS IIF got into severe
> programmatic difficulties.
>
> Then there are 'Color of Money' issues. *For those who haven't been
> evolved with DoD funding, *funds are allocated along lines ranging
> from basic R&D to procurement of approved materiel. *The first *few
> IIIA satellites are funded with R&D funds and there's a legal
> requirement to not cross these funding lines by spending in an
> unauthorized manner.
>
> Notwithstanding programmatic issues, restructuring would delay
> delivery of the IIIB satellites allowing OCX to phase into the overall
> modernization schedule. *I suppose it can be 'spun' that way.
>
> --- *CHAS

Building 2 IIIA is an ok idea. It really reduces risk. But beyond
that, its unnecessary (as long as IIIB and IIIC gets built).

IIA birds are still there, serving us well enough, and just 3 more
launches and we'll have 24 operational birds even assuming all IIA
birds "already dead".

It's funny that schedules from 10 years ago assumed all IIF birds
launched by now plus quite a few IIIA, with L2C FOC and L5 IOC this
year, we're essentially 12 launches behind from those older schedules.

Even with the solar maximum degrading older birds, I'm still betting
double launches won't be needed for another 4-5 years, assuming one
single launch per year until then. That's even if they are needed. So
far there have been around one launch every 15 months, with no change
planned for the next year (considering lead time for launch
announcements - around 9 months).

Since we're talking about the GPS constellation status, IIF-2/PRN1 is
still performing quite worse than IIF-1/PRN25, with RMS URE around
70cm versus 30cm, hopefully this is a phase of building ephemeris/
clock prediction data, and performance will improve over the next
weeks (it has improved since activation). IIF-2 performance is worse
than IIR-M average.

Source: http://adn.agi.com/GNSSWeb/PAFPSFViewer.aspx (the last chart)

[Alan Browne]

On 2011-11-04 19:33 , macpacheco wrote:
> http://www.gpsworld.com/defense/news/congressional-budget-office-issues-report-gps-defense-12261
>
> Sad, sad possibility, the congressional budget office is proposing
> killing GPS IIIB/C, arguing the new features aren't essential for
> military purposes.

Given the state of the US federal debt and deficit and the high
reliability and availability of GPS, there is no urgency to spend more
money.

While it might annoy those with an interest in the advancement of GPS,
it is not a priority. The more advanced birds can wait for greener
times - although there are few bets that there will be greener times in
the US budget morass.


--
gmail originated posts filtered due to spam.

[HIPAR]

On Nov 5, 10:32*am, Alan Browne >
wrote:

>
> Given the state of the US federal debt and deficit and the high
> reliability and availability of GPS, there is no urgency to spend more
> money.
>

I'm surprised GAO didn't recommend cancellation of GPS III.

Boeing proposes the DoD should order additional GPS IIF satellites.
They have that so called 'Pulse Line' manufacturing system debugged
and contend they can deliver two of three satellites per year; easily
outpacing launch capabilities. That plan would delete LIC resulting in
a semi-modernized constellation.

Then, OCX can be eliminated with additional software patches applied
to the current ground software as required to operate the L5, L2C and
M Code signals. But there's no hurry to do that since M Code user
equipment isn't anywhere near ready for delivery, we all have been
doing just fine without L2C and L5 cannot be ready any time soon
either.

That should maintain things until the US collapses on the road to
finical perdition.

--- CHAS

[Ed M.[_2_]]

From the Preface of the report:

"This Congressional Budget Office (CBO) study . . . was prepared at
the request of the former
Chairman of the Defense Subcommittee of the House Committee on
Appropriations . . . "

That was Norm Dicks (D-WA).

http://www.house.gov/list/speech/wa06_dicks/morenews1/dodchmn.shtml

The current chairman is C. W. Bill Young (R-FL).

The subcommittee's web site doesn't seem to mention this report at
all.

http://appropriations.house.gov/Files/?CatagoryID=34795

Nor does Mr. Dicks.

http://www.house.gov/dicks/

This report seems to be getting more attention within the GPS
community than it's getting from Congress.

[Alan Browne]

On 2011-11-05 12:53 , HIPAR wrote:
> On Nov 5, 10:32 am, Alan >
> wrote:
>
>>
>> Given the state of the US federal debt and deficit and the high
>> reliability and availability of GPS, there is no urgency to spend more
>> money.
>>
>
> I'm surprised GAO didn't recommend cancellation of GPS III.
>
> Boeing proposes the DoD should order additional GPS IIF satellites.

Funny how vendors have such great ideas to 'help' the government even if
it is not the best long term solution in terms of cost/benefit, not to
mention not even needed at this point.

(How many spare units are in inventory on the ground?)

> They have that so called 'Pulse Line' manufacturing system debugged
> and contend they can deliver two of three satellites per year; easily
> outpacing launch capabilities. That plan would delete LIC resulting in
> a semi-modernized constellation.
>
> Then, OCX can be eliminated with additional software patches applied
> to the current ground software as required to operate the L5, L2C and
> M Code signals. But there's no hurry to do that since M Code user
> equipment isn't anywhere near ready for delivery, we all have been
> doing just fine without L2C and L5 cannot be ready any time soon
> either.
>
> That should maintain things until the US collapses on the road to
> finical perdition.

Whence Galileo, GLONASS and even Compass (II) can take over...


--
gmail originated posts filtered due to spam.

[macpacheco]

On Nov 5, 12:32*pm, Alan Browne >
wrote:
> ...
> Given the state of the US federal debt and deficit and the high
> reliability and availability of GPS, there is no urgency to spend more
> money.
>
> While it might annoy those with an interest in the advancement of GPS,
> it is not a priority. *The more advanced birds can wait for greener
> times - although there are few bets that there will be greener times in
> the US budget morass.

One important angle is when more SVs will be needed, beyond the 10 IIF
birds already in the pipeline, as they *could* last throughout this
decade, add 2 IIIA + 2 IIIB and I *bet* that's all GPS launches before
2020.

Assuming SVN27 is reactivated, 10 IIF birds will retire the last 10
IIA birds sustaining a 31 bird constellation. Add two IIIA plus two
IIIB, and chances are that's all that will be launched until 2020
(average three launches every two years, about a 100% launch speedup).

The fact is USAF must plan based on essentially the worse possible
scenario, even if that scenario is quite unlikely (let's say 10%
chance).

Their SV production plans are based on a quite pessimistic scenario,
of 2-3 SVs dying yearly.

All GPS production / launch planning has been done at 3 yearly
launches, but we're launching less than one yearly. That's quite a
mismatch.

If anybody on the list has any information about SVN27 (old PRN27) is
it worse now that it was before its deactivation, or just was retired
to free a PRN (while IIF-2 was undergoing checkout and PRN24 stayed
active) ? With PRN24 retired, PRN24 and 27 are unused, with no
launches on schedule, using the 31st PRN would be a good thing.

Even with 30 healthy birds plus some spares, GPS still looks better
than ok.

So one point is IIIA/B/OCX development isn't time sensitive yet.

My prediction is: With Galileo coming online, a new shiny GNSS (from a
democratic union of countries) making the geriatric (by then) GPS look
bad, but GPS will still be alright except for the 15 yr late
modernization schedule. The fact that GLONASS is on the verge of
having signal coverage comparable to GPS might also pressure GPS
modernization, and by the end of the decade they should have the
entire constellation with GLONASS K models with CDMA capability plus
atomic clocks performing on par with GPS average.

GPS is such an essential part of the modern world, and given the
creative ways in which GPS has been used for War and Peace, I contend
at least the current modernization effort (with the slow launch
schedule) should continue, just plan more realistically and the budget
forecast will come down.

Marcelo Pacheco

[Mxsmanic]

Alan Browne writes:

> Whence Galileo, GLONASS and even Compass (II) can take over...

One governed by a massively corrupt government, the other by a hodgepodge of
countries including several that can't even stay solvent. Why does that not
reassure me?

[macpacheco]

On Nov 11, 1:46*am, Mxsmanic > wrote:
> Alan Browne writes:
> > Whence Galileo, GLONASS and even Compass (II) can take over...
>
> One governed by a massively corrupt government, the other by a hodgepodge of
> countries including several that can't even stay solvent. Why does that not
> reassure me?

There's indeed a great chance Galileo will take over as the premiere
GNSS system.

However there's zero chance GPS will fail to meet minimal performance
standards in my view.

There's also zero chance of the market offering Galileo only GNSS
receivers (without at least GPS capability as well).

The real question is which GNSS system will offer the best
performance, which is mostly a ****ing match. In 10 years, all new
GNSS receivers will be at least double constellation, and most will be
triple (or more). The move by the Russian government of shoving
GLONASS down every Russian GNSS user's throat will add GLONASS to 90%
of new receivers by 2015, and Galileo will be adopted due to its
frequency commonality and the fact that L1C will be the premiere GNSS
signal in the future.

The end game is win win for users. Only the US govt prestige and the
GPS modernization schedule that is at stake.

Hopefully WAAS will be updated to include Galileo and GLONASS. That's
actually far more important than the GPS modernization schedule.

And we're still waiting for the Beidou ICD. Per usual, China is
stonewalling. The risk is Beidou will become irrelevant for users
outside of China.

Marcelo Pacheco