If you used your phone to dodge traffic this morning, you leaned on GPS without thinking about it. Now the U.S. Space Force is weighing whether to walk away from the next-generation software that is supposed to run that satellite network, after years of delays and billions in cost growth.
OCX was formally accepted by the government in 2025, but the ground segment is still not ready for full operational use after government-led testing surfaced new problems. The Pentagon is reviewing options that include canceling OCX entirely and instead upgrading the older system that already runs the constellation.
A nearly $8 billion system that still is not operational
OCX is the command-and-control backbone for military GPS, the ground software and hardware that lets operators manage satellites and their newest signals.
Ainsworth told Congress that formal acceptance in 2025 shifted the program from contractor-led testing to government-led testing, where operators ran more realistic trials with “actual GPS satellites, ground antennas, and user equipment.”
Those government trials found what he called “extensive system issues across all sub-systems, many of which have not been resolved.”
That is a tough line to read after a program that began with a 2010 contract and was originally expected to deliver in 2016 for about $3.7 billion, before the cost estimate rose to nearly $8 billion and triggered a Nunn-McCurdy breach in 2016.
The Space Force accepted the system from the contractor in July 2025 and publicly said it expected a constellation transfer to operations later that year, but the timeline has slid.
Now the service says defects will require “substantially more time than planned to resolve,” and it has sent a detailed analysis to Pentagon acquisition chief Michael Duffey, who oversees the program. RTX says it delivered “a mission-capable system” and is working with the government to address post-delivery concerns.
Why this matters in a world of jamming and spoofing
If the satellites are already up there, why does a delayed ground system matter so much? Because the key upgrades are not just on the spacecraft, they live in the software that commands them and the receivers that interpret their signals.
In a separate statement for the same March 2026 hearing, Space Force Lt. Gen. Doug Schiess warned that “Jamming (denial of signal) and spoofing (false signals) are a current and growing threat to GPS.”
He said the modern encrypted military signal called “M-Code” is foundational to GPS modernization, in part because it is designed to overcome jamming and make spoofing harder through advanced encryption.
You do not need to be in a cockpit to see the stakes. Russian electronic warfare has included GPS jamming and spoofing that complicates drone operations in Ukraine, and security analysts increasingly warn that cheap jammers and spoofers can turn GPS into something you can no longer take for granted.
The backup plan that became the plan
For now, the Space Force still runs the GPS constellation through an older command-and-control system called the Architecture Evolution Plan, or AEP. The Pentagon has treated it as a bridge while OCX matures, but it has also become the practical path to keep GPS III satellites useful today.
AEP is not frozen in time. GPS.gov notes that AEP received upgrades to support GPS III satellites and an “M-Code Early Use” upgrade in 2020 that provides core M-Code capabilities ahead of the next-generation ground system.
That stopgap now has real budget and industrial consequences. Air & Space Forces reports that Lockheed Martin is under contract to sustain and upgrade AEP, and that if OCX is canceled, AEP would need further upgrades to support GPS III features and to handle the upcoming GPS IIIF satellites.
How a software project turns into an acquisition trap
The warning lights on OCX have been flashing for a long time.
In 2015, the Government Accountability Office said the Air Force began OCX development before completing key early reviews, then accelerated work to meet optimistic satellite timelines and later had to pause to address problems, concluding the program needed about $1.1 billion and four more years than planned because of “poor acquisition decisions and a slow recognition of development problems.”
Software quality was at the center of that critique. GAO pointed to a high defect rate and unrealistic cost and schedule estimates that limited oversight, a familiar trap in large-scale software where progress can look fine on paper until operational testing starts breaking things.
Ainsworth’s message in March 2026 added an uncomfortable wrinkle. He told lawmakers the problems include “program management,” “contractor performance,” and “system engineering” on both the government and contractor side, while also describing new tools Congress has given the Space Force to pressure underperforming firms, including a Contractor Responsibility Watch List and actions like letters of concern and unsatisfactory award-fee scores.
What to watch next for GPS III and the GPS IIIF era
The immediate question is whether the Pentagon keeps betting on OCX or shifts fully to upgrading AEP. Either way, it is about timing as much as it is about pride, because the space segment is moving forward.
The Space Force currently operates 32 GPS satellites, and nine GPS III satellites have already been launched, according to Air & Space Forces. Schiess told Congress that GPS III brings measurable gains, including a 15-year design life (about double earlier satellites), roughly three times better accuracy, and up to eight times better anti-jamming performance compared with legacy spacecraft.
Then comes GPS IIIF, the next production batch. Ainsworth said the program is on track to deliver its first two GPS IIIF space vehicles in fiscal year 2027, and the Pentagon’s weapons testing office has warned that continued OCX delays put warfighters and allies at risk because “full M-code has not deployed to the field for use in operations.”
The next few months will show whether the Pentagon chooses a clean break from OCX, a narrower rewrite, or a slower path that keeps the old system alive longer than anyone planned. At the end of the day, this is what the OCX fight is really about.
