The United States Space Force’s GPS III program reached another milestone with the successful core mate of GPS III Space Vehicle 08 at Lockheed Martin’s GPS III Processing Facility in Waterton, Colorado, April 15. With core mate complete, the space vehicle was named in honor of NASA trailblazer and “hidden figure” Katherine Johnson.
GPS III SV08 is currently scheduled to launch in 2022.
GPS III is the most powerful GPS satellite ever developed. It is three times more accurate and provides up to eight times improved anti-jamming capability over previous GPS satellites on orbit. GPS III brings new capabilities to users as a fourth civilian signal (L1C), designed to enable interoperability between GPS and international satellite navigation systems, such as Europe’s Galileo system.