Raytheon Co., a defense technology company in America, will be opening a new GPS center in El Segundo, California. The center, according to Daily Breeze, will be located near the Los Angeles, California Air Force Base’s Space and Missile Systems Center. This center is where the military primarily purchases satellite-related vehicles.

About 30 employees will work at the new Raytheon GPS Center, and the center will aid in Raytheon’s cooperation with the Air Force’s GPS tracking technology.

“The center allows us proximity with the customer to be able to work with them on issues affecting the (GPS) constellation,” Jared Adams of Raytheon told Daily Breeze. “They can game what would happen before they make any change to the constellation.” So, in essence, the new Raytheon GPS center will allow for advanced simulation of changes to the GPS constellation of satellites without making changes that alter the customer GPS experience. This GPS center in El Segundo, California, will cut down on nationwide GPS downtime once it is complete.

The center is being paid for by a nearly $900-million contract, spread out over six years of funding, by the Air Force.

Raytheon is not the only company involved in this program; Boeing and other companies are also involved, and are lending help to the Air Force to make the GPS systems more reliable and modern, especially as the more modern GPS III constellation is phased in over the next few years.

Article Written by Greg Minton