In the late 1960s, engineers typed commands on noisy teletypes and waited minutes to learn whether a satellite obeyed. This era birthed Kosmos and the first GPS test birds which were the foundation for today’s fast, responsive space services.. Today, one click can redirect the whole GPS fleet within seconds. This jump is like switching from a rotary phone for a 5G smartphone.
Raytheon’s recent funding update is sealing this leap.
On the 21st of May 2025, the U.S. Space Force approved contract modification P00454, granting Raytheon an extra $379.8 million to finish and test the GPS Next-Generation Operational Control System (OCX).
The top-up lifts the project’s value to ≈ $4.6 billion, pays the workforce through the 31st of March 2026, and reserves another $162 million for follow-on support if needed.
The extra money will finish OCX, allowing GPS satellites to receive commands almost instantly, boosting both the speed and reliability of the entire network.
A three-act ground-tech story
Act I – Mainframes & Microwave Links (1970-mid-1980s)
Early master-control computers at Vandenberg wrote commands onto punch cards, loaded them by magnetic tape and beamed them to the satellites over dedicated microwave circuits, so each orbit upload was a hand-crafted event.
Act II – Architecture Evolution Plan (AEP) (2000-2013)
In 2007, the Air Force scrapped those mainframes for commercial servers, shifted traffic onto IP networks and added an alternate master-control site; uploads dropped from hours to minutes, but cyber-defence was still an afterthought, and large crews remained the norm.
Act III – OCX & DevSecOps (2014-today)
OCX brings cloud-native micro-services and zero-trust security, supports new L1C, L5 and encrypted M-code signals, and targets near-instant uploads.
Why does this matter?
Finishing Act III moves GPS from ‘update every few hours’ to cloud-speed control, unlocking resilient on-orbit computing, autonomous servicing and other Space-as-a-Service business lines that depend on rock-solid, real-time timing.
A live example that shows it works
During early February dry runs, OCX beamed navigation updates to legacy GPS satellites 40 times in a row without a hiccup and by mid-April that tally had climbed to about 130 flawless contacts. This proved the new control system “talked” to the old satellites over and over without a single glitch, proving it’s compatible and reliable.
Final thoughts
Space-as-a-Service only scales if the ground segment keeps pace with payload ambition.
OCX’s fresh funding closes the last mile between agile software on Earth and agile platforms in space.
For the wider space sector, this funding is showing a positive impact on the industry. Investors are able to see momentum, not stall-outs and start-ups building in-orbit computing, autonomous servicing, or precision data products get the nanosecond timing backbone they’ve been waiting for.
The takeaway is simple.
Keep pushing latency lower, security higher and pipelines smoother, and every new satellite will do more than showcase hardware—it will extend the business of space itself.
