[Satellite TODAY 02-07-13] Lockheed Martin has announced a milestone in the development of flight software for the United States Air Force‘s Global Position System 3 satellites. The flight software is critical to control the spacecraft in orbit and monitoring satellite’s subsystems.

   The Software Item Qualification Testing for the satellite’s spacecraft bus flight software was completed and the software will soon be integrated and tested on the first GPS 3 satellite.

The GPS 3 program will replace aging GPS satellites with enhance systems for better accuracy and anti-jamming capabilities. Additionally, the satellites will feature a civil signal for better interoperability between military and civilian systems. The Air Force is planning a fleet of 32 satellites, four of which have been contracted to Lockheed Martin.