The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that the Air Force might be searching for an outside firm of engineers to oversee systems integration of its new GPS III satellites, according to “industry and government officials.” The Air Force has run into cost and schedule problems with numerous high profile space systems, so presumably this type arrangement would fill some gap in oversight capability. The Air Force is not commenting, yet.
The Department of the Air Force is consolidating more than 50 programs supporting its efforts to create a vast battle network into a single $4.5 billion contract vehicle to streamline software and technology integration.
