On battlefields where radio signals can drown out critical GPS signals guiding aircraft and vehicles, Lockheed Martin is building new satellites that will boost GPS signals by more than 60 times in targeted areas to serve troops. 

The new GPS 3 Follow-on satellites will have an antenna reflector array that will send an encrypted GPS signal, called military code back down to Earth to serve a specific 1,200-kilometer area and boost the signal by 63 times, said Malik Musawwir, vice president of Lockheed Martin’s navigation systems during an event at Warfare Symposium in Aurora this week. 

“It is the future,” he said. 

Currently, 12 satellites in the GPS 3 Follow-On series are under construction at Lockheed Martin’s facility in Littleton. The staff are testing the first in the series, Musawwir said.

 Once in space, Space Force guardians at Schriever Space Force Base will fly them. From their desks, the guardians monitor the satellites and ground antennas, and take calls from those experiencing anomalies

Enemy fighters trying to jam GPS signal will either have to be within meters of a receiver they are trying to jam or send out a powerful signal, he explained. A tremendously high-powered signal would in turn give away the combatants’ location, he said. 

The boosted signal will be a “game changer for resiliency of a GPS signal to ensure that our war fighters are getting the assured signal that they need every day to be able to help them execute their mission and to come home safely,” he said. 

But new military communication systems, such as the Next Generation Command and Control system, the Army is testing at Fort Carson, should still be designed to function if GPS is not available, he said.

The GPS constellation currently has 31 satellites, with the newest one reaching orbit in late January. 

The first satellite in the constellation was launched in 1978 for military use. When Russia shot down a Korean Airlines flight in 1983 with air-to-air missiles for being in restricted airspace accidentally, the Reagan administration moved to open up the constellation to civilian planes. 

The Air Force selected Lockheed Martin to build the GPS 3F satellites in 2018 before the Space Force was founded. The contract specified the company would build up to 22 new satellites.