Astranis announced the completion of a key demonstration for the U.S. Space Force’s (USSF) Resilient GPS (R-GPS) program, transmitting core GPS waveforms using Astranis’ software-defined radio hardware. The demonstration was delivered on budget and ahead of schedule, just four months into the program, highlighting Astranis’ ability to leverage their existing, flight-heritage high-orbit satellite hardware to deliver new resilient capabilities to the USSF.
The demonstration was performed at Astranis’ headquarters in San Francisco, California, and involved both a flight-like Astranis software-defined radio and the positioning, navigation, and timing algorithms from Astranis’ partner and subcontractor for the Resilient GPS program, Xona Space Systems. The Astranis team transmitted a GPS Course Acquisition (C/A) navigation signal through the Astranis Resilient GPS payload and demonstrated signal acquisition and recovery of Legacy Navigation (LNAV)messages using an off-the-shelf GPS receiver.
This test validated that Astranis’ Resilient GPS design, Astranis Nexus, is compliant with GPS specifications “out of the box,” proving the compatibility of Astranis’ GPS solution with existing GPS user equipment. Meeting this mission-critical requirement will allow the USSF to deploy new Resilient GPS satellites without requiring a multi-billion-dollar upgrade to already-deployed user equipment.
In September 2024, Astranis was selected as one of four bidders to design next-generation Resilient GPS satellites as part of the U.S. Space Force’s Resilient GPS program. Astranis received its Authority to proceed from USSF’s Space System Command on September 19, 2024, and is surpassing program objectives ahead of schedule with today’s demonstration.
Astranis is well-positioned to deliver its solution in line with USSF’s ambitious schedule of launching the first eight satellites by 2028 and will continue to mature its Resilient GPS satellite design over the coming months.
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