The GPS constellation that provides positioning, navigation and timing signals to the US military and civilians around the world, is made up of 31 active satellites. (BlackJack3D/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The Space Force has chosen four companies to kick off its Resilient Global Positioning System (R-GPS) to back up GPS satellite signals, most of which are easily jammed, during times of crisis and conflict, Space Systems Command (SSC) announced today.

The four companies are Astranis, Axient, L3 Harris, and Sierra Space, which each were awarded a contract “to produce design concepts” for the first of three planned Lite Evolving Augmented Proliferation (LEAP) efforts that will make up the R-GPS program.

“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,” the SSC release said.

Each LEAP segment will include eight small, low-cost satellites with incrementally improved capabilities, and the first LEAP satellite set is expected to begin launching in 2028, SSC explained.

The Other Transaction Authority awards were made via the Space Enterprise Consortium (SpEC), though the press release provided no value for them. Nor did it provide any specifics about what exact signals they would be broadcasting.

The 31 GPS satellites broadcast a variety of signals in the L1 frequency band (1575.42 MHz) and the L2 band (1227.60 MHz), including the encrypted, jam-resistant M-Code restricted to military users. Newer versions also broadcast in the L5 band (1176.45 MHz) primarily for aviation safety purposes.

“Following this initial phase, a subset of the awardees will continue to a Final Design Review and build payload prototypes. One or more vendors will then be selected to build the first satellite vehicles,” the SSC release said.

The R-GPS program is part of Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall’s “quick start” initiative push to speed up acquisitions by getting around constraints of the cumbersome budget process. Congress provided $100 million (versus Kendall’s initial proposal of $300 million) for the quick start effort in the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act.

“Thanks to the Quick-Start authority that was approved by Congress, we were able to field and award contracts for these low-cost satellites in less than six months,” Kendall said in the SSC press release.