The United States Air Force began the GPS Block IIIF acquisition effort in 2016.
[11] The USNDS is a worldwide system of space-based sensors and ground processing equipment designed to detect, identify, locate, characterize, and report nuclear detonations in the Earth's atmosphere and in space.
Satellites relay distress signals to ground stations to initiate timely emergency response efforts.
RMP involves directing a massively-amplified spot beam which only includes military GPS signals over a small geographic area.
Other significant enhancements include: unified S-Band (USB) interface compliance, integration of hosted payloads including a redesigned United States Nuclear Detonation (NUDET) Detection System (USNDS) payload, Energetic Charged Particles (ECP) sensor, and Regional Military Protection (RMP) capabilities that provide the ability to deliver high-power regional Military Code (M-Code) signals in specific areas of intended effect.
The U.S. Air Force employed a two-phase competitive bid acquisition process for the GPS Block IIIF satellites.
[49] On 19 April 2017, the U.S. Air Force Space Command announced the start of the second phase of its acquisition strategy with the publication of a special notice for an "Industry Day" for companies planning on bidding for the contract to manufacture GPS III vehicles 11+.
[48] During the Industry Day event, the Air Force shared the tentative acquisition strategy which it will use to evaluate proposals, then solicited feedback from potential bidders.
[50] Also in November 2017, it was announced that development of the fully digital navigation payload for GPS Block IIIF satellites had completed.
[51] The Block IIIA program schedule was delayed multiple times due to issues with the navigation payload.
[52][53] While the Air Force originally expected to publish the formal Request For Proposals (RFP) for GPS Block IIIF production in September 2017, it was not released until 13 February 2018.
[55] The bid status of companies who participated in phase one, in alphabetical order: On 14 September 2018, the Air Force awarded a manufacturing contract with options worth up to US$7.2 billion to Lockheed Martin.