Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Launch of next-generation GPS satellite postponed for one day
DENVER — The launch of a new GPS satellite was postponed for one day Tuesday because of an unspecified problem with the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that will put the satellite in orbit.
Liftoff was rescheduled for Wednesday at Cape Canaveral, Fla.
SpaceX said Tuesday’s launch was scratched because of sensor readings on the rocket’s first stage. Neither the company nor the U.S. Air Force provided details.
This will be the first GPS satellite launch for SpaceX.
The rocket will carry a GPS III satellite, the first of new a generation of GPS orbiters designed to be more accurate, secure and versatile than predecessors. Lockheed Martin is building the new satellites outside Denver.
GPS III satellites will have a stronger military signal that’s harder to jam. They also will provide a new civilian signal compatible with other countries’ navigation satellites.
But some of those features will not be fully available until 2022 or later because of problems in a companion program to develop a new ground control system for the satellites, government auditors said.
The satellite, launching four years late, also contains about 600 suspect capacitors out of almost 28,000 parts used on its navigation payload. The Air Force decided in 2016 not to replace them after the capacitors were discovered on the second and third satellites being built and pulled them out.
All sides agreed that the subcontractor at the time, Exelis Inc. and now Harris Corp. had failed to do required testing on the capacitors five years earlier, in 2011, with Lockheed saying it was responsible for maintaining oversight of its subcontractors.
The Air Force decided that the risk in taking apart the satellite and reassembling it “to remove and replace the capacitors was greater than the risk of launching the satellite ‘as is,’ ” said Cristina Chaplain, director of space acquisition oversight for the Government Accountability Office, via email.
The $529 million satellite was already 28 months late at the time in 2016 when the service began investigating capacitor failures. But “rigorous” ground testing of the satellite gave the companies and the Air Force confidence they could go forward without opening up the satellite, Chaplain said.
Nevertheless, “by definition, this satellite has a greater level of risk built in,” she added, saying “cost and schedule considerations also were at play, obviously,” in the decision not to tamper with the first satellite.
The Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center said in an email that the satellite, which weighs 9,700 pounds when fueled, “has undergone more than 11,000 hours of testing without capacitor failures, giving further confidence” that it “will perform nominally.”