Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Vice president to visit Space Coast
Pence is expected to announce that Trump will sign an executive order creating a U.S. Space Command.
Vice President Mike Pence will pay the Space Coast a visit Tuesday to witness SpaceX’s first national security launch for the U.S. Air Force.
And Pence will come with an announcement of his own. According to the Associated Press, the vice president is expected to announce that President Donald Trump will sign an executive order by the end of the year creating a U.S. Space Command as a major military command.
Trump could sign the order as soon as Tuesday, the AP reported. The move is separate from Trump’s vision for the creation of an independent armed service branch, but the Space Command could help in the push for a Space Force.
Pence will deliver his remarks following the launch, scheduled to take place between 9:11 and 9:35 a.m. from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s launch complex 40. Taking the trip on a Falcon 9 rocket Tuesday is the first in a new design of GPS satellites with three times better accuracy that will help modernize the Air Force’s current GPS constellation.
In a tweet, Pence called the launch from “the World’s Premier Gateway to Space” an “important step forward as we seek to secure American leadership in space.”
The launch has been a long time coming for both SpaceX and the Air Force.
The Elon Musk-led rocket company sued the Air Force in 2014 arguing for more competitive bidding on its contracts, before dropping the suit in 2015. In 2016, it secured the contract for the launch of the third generation GPS satellite — a first for the company.
Meanwhile, the launch has been delayed several times this year. Delays with the satellites’ ground control system, too, means their features won’t be fully available until at least 2022, according to an audit by the Government Accountability Office.
The Lockheed Martinbuild GPS III satellite has been touted as a major improvement to the current GPS constellation. The satellite comes equipped with eight times improved antijamming and an extended spacecraft life of 15 years — 25 percent longer than GPS satellites currently on orbit. It also will be the first GPS satellite to broadcast a signal compatible with other international global navigation systems, like Europe’s Galileo.
“The world is dependent on GPS. More than four billion military, commercial and civilian users connect with signals generated by GPS satellites every day,” said Johnathon Caldwell, Lockheed Martin’s vice president for navigation systems, in a press release. “The launch of GPS III SV01 will be the first step in modernizing the Air Force’s GPS constellation with the most powerful and resilient GPS satellites ever designed and built.”
The satellite, nicknamed “Vespucci,” is the first of 10 GPS III satellites ordered by the Air Force. The second is scheduled to launch next year. Lockheed Martin is also under an estimated $7.2 billion contract to build as many as 22 additional GPS III satellites.
On Vespucci, Melbourne-based Harris Corporation is providing the navigation payload technology that creates and sends the GPS signal, continuing a legacy of providing the technology on every GPS satellite since the first launch in 1978.
For Tuesday, the weather is looking favorable, according to the Air Force’s 45th Weather Squadron. Conditions are 90 percent “go” for launch, with light winds and clear skies expected Tuesday morning.