Air Force to Make Navstar Choice : Rockwell, Magnavox Vie for Huge Electronics Contract
The Air Force is preparing to award a contract within a week for what is believed to be the largest defense electronics program in history--production of a “Buck Rogers” generation of navigation terminals.
The terminals, part of the Navstar Global Positioning System, will become ubiquitous within the military and are likely to show up increasingly in a wide variety of commercial, industrial and even consumer products in the years ahead.
Two competitors--Rockwell International Corp. and Magnavox Government & Industrial Electronics Co.--are battling for an initial Air Force contract that will give the winner a prime position in the new multibillion-dollar market for the Navstar terminals.
Final Bid Submitted
In recent weeks, the two contractors have submitted their “best and final offers” to the Air Force’s space division in El Segundo, which is managing the Navstar program. If all goes well, the Defense Department will give final authorization for production next fall, according to Col. John Porter, Navstar program manager.
Rockwell would produce the terminals at its Collins Government Avionics division in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Magnavox would make its terminals at its Advanced Products & Systems Co. in Torrance.
The impact on jobs at either company would be minimal, largely because both contractors are prepared to manufacture the Navstar sets on highly automated production lines that will require few workers. Still, the Navstar contract would be the largest military program for either Rockwell Collins or Magnavox.
10-Year Development
The upcoming award culminates 10 years of intense competition to develop and test terminals for Navstar, a system in which the government alone is preparing to invest more than $5 billion in satellites and ground equipment in future decades.
Navstar will enable military users to determine their location anywhere on the Earth within 16 meters, accuracy far in advance of today’s best navigation systems and one that is expected to generate entirely new capabilities.
“We are in a revolution in navigation,” Loren E. DeGroot, Rockwell Collins vice president, said. “We haven’t begun to comprehend what 16 meters’ accuracy can do for us. The applications are limited only by our intellectual curiosity.”
Everyday Uses
In the most radical scenarios, Navstar will provide computerized dashboard maps for automobiles, collision avoidance systems for airliners and postal deliveries using Earth coordinates instead of street addresses.
A few commercial units that have already hit the market are being used for geodetic surveys and in oil exploration. Over a period of several days, a stationary Navstar terminal can determine a position to within several centimeters, an important capability in oil drilling operations in remote areas.
The military, meanwhile, plans to use the terminals not only for routine navigation but also for precision bombing, guiding missiles, aiming artillery and commanding tactical battlefields.
In tests of the existing developmental system, the Air Force said it has successfully dropped unguided bombs at night to within 20 feet of targets. With that kind of accuracy, one Air Force analyst suggested, a Navstar-guided bombing attack of the Vincent Thomas Bridge in San Pedro would destroy it in one pass.
Commercial Market
Although the military sets are expected to cost an average of about $60,000 each, commercial and consumer sets could eventually cost less than $1,000 each, William Euler, Magnavox vice president, said.
“It is a very big commercial market,” Euler said. “That’s why we are working so hard to prepare for it.”
The Navstar system will be based on a “constellation” of 18 satellites orbiting 11,000 miles above the Earth that will broadcast navigation signals to users at terminals.
The terminals work by tuning in signals broadcast from the Navstar satellites, measuring the distance to the satellites and applying elementary rules of geometry. Distances are measured by timing how long the signals take to travel at the speed of light. To carry out that task, the satellites carry atomic clocks accurate to within one second every 300,000 years.
Location is given in latitude and longitude on a display in the terminal. In addition to simple location, the system can calculate altitude, speed and distance to a point.
Satellite Project
The space segment of the Navstar system also is being produced by Rockwell at its Seal Beach satellite facility. The firm is under contract to produce 28 Navstar satellites at a cost of about $44 million each, Porter said. The satellites cost about $75 million to launch.
Porter said the satellites have a projected life span of 7 1/2 years. Therefore, to keep the system operating, the Air Force may need to buy satellites until the year 2050, and Rockwell envisions a potential market for 70. The Navstar satellite program is also the largest satellite program in history.
The competition to build terminals for the system began in 1974 with four contractors, including Texas Instruments Inc. and Teledyne Inc. In 1979, when the field was narrowed to two, the Air Force awarded Rockwell an $87-million full-scale development contract and Magnavox an $83-million contract.
The system is not expected to be fully operational until 1988 or 1989. When development of the Navstar system began in the early 1970s, it was to have been completed much sooner.
The military plans to buy at least 26,000 Navstar terminals worth an estimated $1.5 billion over the next decade, but it could expand its purchases once the technology is proved effective.
Escalating Cost
The cost of the system had grown so much by 1981 that the House Armed Services Committee considered killing the program, a committee staff member said. A 1983 General Accounting Office report also disputed a Pentagon plan to pay for the system partly by charging commercial users for the satellite signals, GAO investigator Homer Thomson said. That plan was later dropped.
The current contract award also is behind schedule. As recently as 1983, the Air Force had planned to award the initial contract in 1984, according to the GAO report.
Porter said the program is now in good condition and earlier development problems have been resolved. “Both contractors have met or exceeded the program goals,” he said.
The Army, Air Force and Navy plan to equip aircraft, helicopters, surface ships, submarines, tanks and field troops with Navstar terminals, Porter said.
The Air Force is also considering using the Navstar system to provide mid-course guidance for tactical missiles, which would be an enormous market. The armed services plan to buy hundreds of thousands of missiles in the years ahead.
Industry officials said it is unlikely that any single company will produce all 26,000 military terminals. The upcoming Air Force source selection will provide for future contracts covering production of 6,500 units. In 1989, the program will be put up for competition again.
Texas Instruments also is keeping its hand in. Although the firm lost the Air Force competition in 1979, it has been selling Navstar terminals on the commercial market, according to Janice Harbus, a Texas Instruments official. The firm has sold several dozen of the terminals at $144,000 each and hopes to win future military contracts, Harbus said.
The commercial market is creating the highest expectations among Navstar producers. It is estimated at more than half a million terminals by the turn of the century.
Euler, the Magnavox vice president, estimated that a market between 100,000 and 200,000 Navstar terminals exists in outfitting commercial ships and boats. Such vessels currently rely on the Transit system, a far less accurate satellite system due to be phased out in 1995.
Outfitting various civilian users would add several hundred thousand sales to the Navstar market, Euler believes. The commercial, industrial and consumer market, however, is clearly the most uncertain.
General Motors Corp. has studied putting Navstar terminals in automobiles for an automated map system. Several Japanese auto makers have also demonstrated such a system at auto shows.
Fishing vessels could precisely mark the location of fertile fishing holes. And a Magnavox research report recently suggested that the system could even prove useful to backpackers in remote regions.
