RTX Corporation, formerly known as Raytheon, won a Pentagon contract in 2010 to develop and deliver the control system. The program was supposed to be complete in 2016 at a cost of $3.7 billion. Today, the official cost for the ground system for the GPS III satellites stands at $7.6 billion. RTX is developing an OCX augmentation projected to cost more than $400 million to support a new series of GPS IIIF satellites set to begin launching next year, bringing the total effort to $8 billion.
Although RTX delivered OCX to the Space Force last July, the ground segment remains nonoperational. Nine months later, the Pentagon may soon call it quits on the program. Thomas Ainsworth, assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration, told Congress last week that OCX is still struggling. The GAO found the OCX program was undermined by "poor acquisition decisions and a slow recognition of development problems." By 2016, it had blown past cost and schedule targets badly enough to trigger a Pentagon review for possible cancellation.
Officials also pointed to cybersecurity software issues, a "persistently high software development defect rate," the government's lack of software expertise, and Raytheon's "poor systems engineering" practices. Even after the military restructured the program, it kept running into delays and overruns, with Ainsworth telling lawmakers, "It's a very stressing program" and adding, "We are still considering how to ensure we move forward."
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