Lockheed may be only bidder for GPS III Follow-On

By Courtney Albon  / April 19, 2018

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO -- Incumbent Lockheed Martin is the only company to confirm its bid to develop the next generation of GPS III satellites, potentially forcing the Air Force to launch a sole-source acquisition for what was supposed to be a rigorous competition between at least three providers.

Lockheed, Boeing and Northrop Grumman each received a contract in 2016 for the first phase of the GPS III follow-on development effort. Lockheed, which builds the current GPS III satellites, confirmed its bid April 16, and Boeing has said it did not submit a proposal due to language in the request for proposals that emphasized mature production design over cost and payload performance. Northrop declined to comment on whether it submitted a bid.

During an April 19 media briefing at the Space Symposium here, Lt. Gen. John Thompson, commander of the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, would not disclose the number of bids submitted for the Phase II competition. Asked how a sole-source contract might impact the potential cost savings for the program, Thompson said SMC "has a number of procedures in place to ensure we get a good deal if there is only one offer on any particular solicitation."

"That involves some very rigorous cost estimating and a number of other legal and cost reviews," Thompson said. "So regardless of how many offers are in any source selection, we make sure we get an effective system for the warfighter and . . . the taxpayer."

Lockheed is currently on contract to build the first 10 GPS III satellites. The service told Congress in a report that a competitive acquisition approach for GPS III Follow-on could cut between $20 and $30 million off the cost of each space vehicle it buys, Inside Defense previously reported. Further, the service said that if it were to request procurement funds for the 11th and 12th space satellites in fiscal year 2019 -- which lawmakers directed the service to do in the FY-18 Omnibus Appropriations Act -- it would add additional cost and at least an extra year to the program's schedule.

"When viewed in the aggregate, these factors demonstrate the competitive approach is, indeed, cost-effective with a much higher schedule certainty than a sole-source approach," the Air Force said in the report.

GPS III Follow-On satellites will build off the program's baseline capability, but will introduce a higher-power military-code signal, called regional military protection, that will significantly improve its anti-jam capability. The satellites will also host a search-and-rescue GPS payload to support international agreements, an energetic charged particles sensor to improve threat detection and a unified S-band interface that will provide dual-frequency support for the follow-on satellites.