Rendering of an Astranis Nexus satellite. Photo: Astranis

Astranis is working with Xona Space Systems on a spacecraft design for the U.S. Space Force’s Resilient GPS (R-GPS) program. 

In September, Space Systems Command (SSC) named Astranis one of four companies to submit design prototypes for eight resilient GPS satellites, called Lite Evolving Augmented Proliferation. Axient, L3Harris technologies, and Sierra Space were also chosen to submit designs for up to eight R-GPS satellites. 

Astranis announced Nov. 1 that it received an $8 million contract for the concept development. Astranis plans to submit an Astranis R-GPS spacecraft design using the company’s existing MicroGEO satellite design with PNT algorithms from Xona Space Systems. According to Astranis, Xona’s algorithms will be implemented in software on the Astranis Octane software-defined radio hardware.

Xona Space Systems is currently developing the Pulsar Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite network to provide commercial navigation services. 

SSC said in September that one or more vendors will be selected to build the first satellite vehicles. SSC plans to launch the vehicles as soon as 2028. 

“R-GPS provides resilience to military and civil GPS user communities by augmenting the GPS constellation with proliferated small satellites transmitting a core set of widely-utilized GPS signals,” SSC said in September. “The decision to pursue R-GPS was based upon outcomes of recent resilience studies recommending an additional proliferated fleet of small GPS satellites.”