If the weather cooperates, SpaceX will launch a Lockheed Martin-built GPS-III satellite for the Space Force today in a demonstration of how quickly the three organizations can put a new bird in orbit.
Speed racer: While a typical satellite might take 18 to 24 months from contract award to launch, this one aims to get to orbit in under four months. The military notified Lockheed on Feb. 21 to begin prepping a stored GPS-III spacecraft for launch, and gave SpaceX a heads-up on March 7, Space Systems Command said.
This is the follow-up to a Rapid Response Trailblazer launch in December that saw the two companies do the same job in five months.
What it took: Preparation and experience. This GPS satellite was already built and in storage. SpaceX has a fleet of reusable boosters. Also, the extensive flight heritage of the Falcon 9 smooths the way for Space Force to okay a launch on short notice.
“If you have your stuff, if you have your analyses, you have your flight hardware that is needed on the rocket side ready to support a particular mission partner—that’s what is the key enabler to go very quickly,” Walt Lauderdale, SSC’s chief of Falcon systems and operations, told reporters.
Pit crew: When Lockheed got the call, Malik Musawwir, Lockheed’s VP for navigation systems, said, dozens of technicians and engineers pulled the satellite out of storage in Colorado, ran it through testing, prepared the payload adapter, then packed and shipped it to Florida, where personnel integrated it for launch.
This mission moved faster than December’s effort in part because ahead of that launch, storms forced the GPS satellite to be driven across the country, rather than be flown as with this mission.
Making a point: “One of the things that we’re really trying to prove out with this accelerated timeline is the resilience of the constellation,” said Space Force Col. Andrew Menschner, who commands Mission Delta 31, the organization responsible for GPS. “We’re trying to prove that we can quickly respond to an on-orbit failure of a vehicle. Now that we have the timelines of launch headed to much shorter durations, one form of resilience is having a completed vehicle in the factory—and ready to go, to respond.”
