In 2019, the Department of the Air Force designated NTS-3 as one of three initial Vanguard programs. Anticipated to launch in late 2024, NTS-3 will be the Department of Defense’s first experimental, integrated navigation satellite system in nearly 50 years. NTS-3 builds on the legacy of NTS-1 and NTS-2, which were launched in the 1970’s, and it will push the boundary of today’s space-based position, navigation, and timing (PNT) technology to pave the way for a more robust, resilient, and responsive architecture for satellite navigation (SATNAV) technology.
The United States Space Force’s Global Positioning System (GPS) provides precise and widely-available position, navigation, and timing information to the warfighter. It has become a vital utility for both military and commercial use across the world. GPS aides in air traffic control, banking, farming, cellular networks, and countless other industries, and it is perhaps the space system that people around the world depend on the most through each day. The rapidly increasing pace of new threats to GPS such as jamming and spoofing, however, indicate that agile and resilient approaches to augment the GPS system are needed to maintain users’ access to its critical service.
Source: NAVIGATION TECHNOLOGY SATELLITE – 3 (NTS-3) – Air Force Research Laboratory (afresearchlab.com)