On June 17 at 16:09 UTC, a SpaceX Falcon 9 launched the GPS-III Space Vehicle 5 into orbit from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. This was the first national security mission to be flown on a reused Falcon 9, with Booster 1062 making its second flight after launching GPS-III SV 4 back in November 2020.

For those of you keeping score at home, Booster 1062 made its second landing on the drone ship Just Read The Instructions. Both fairings were brand new and were successfully fished out of the water.

The GPS III satellites are the replacement for the aging GPS II constellation. The oldest currently operational GPS satellite is Navstar 43, a GPS Block IIR spacecraft launched in 1997. Its design life was 7.5 years, and it has exceeded that by sixteen years.

Improvements made over previous generations include having three times higher positional accuracy, being eight times more difficult to jam, and a new civilian signal called L1C, which is compatible with other nations’ global and regional satellite navigation systems, such as Galileo, Beidou, and GLONASS.

The next generation of GPS III, named GPS III Follow On, will incorporate a “fully digital navigation payload, an accuracy-enhancing Laser Retro-reflector Array, a Regional Military Protection capability and a government-furnished Search & Rescue payload.”

More Information

SpaceX mission page (Archive)

Navstar 43 (NASA)

GPS III (Lockheed Martin)

Launch video