The NTS-3 satellite integrates an agile positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) payload onto a Northrop Grumman ESPAStar bus to provide a space platform for AFRL and partner organization experiments and integrated capability demonstrations.
The NTS-3 team successfully generated signals on the actual spacecraft and received them with experimental GNSSTA user equipment earlier 2023-01.
The Department of the Air Force’s Navigation Technology Satellite-3 (NTS-3) Vanguard program reached a major milestone in preparation for the satellite’s launch in late 2023.
NTS-3 is managed by the AFRL Transformational Capabilities Office and has program partners in both the U.S. Space Force and the U.S. Air Force.
AFRL and L3Harris are completing remaining intra-payload and payload-to-bus functional and performance tests for NTS-3, including the first radio frequency broadcast tests of the novel PNT signals.
The U.S. Department of the Air Force designated NTS-3 in 2019 as one of the first three Vanguard programs to deliver innovative capabilities to the warfighter at an accelerated pace.
L3Harris Technologies delivered the NTS-3 space vehicle to an Air Force Research Laboratory integration and test facility at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico.
An $84,000,000 experiment named Navigation Technology Satellite-3 (NTS-3) is scheduled to launch in mid to late 2023 to fly to geostationary Earth orbit and augment GPS positioning, navigation, and timing services.
L3Harris won an $84,000,000 contract from AFRL in 2018 to build NTS-3.
NTS-3 will fly to a geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) in 2023.
NTS-3 is projected to launch on the USSF-106 mission planned by the U.S. Space Force.
NTS-3 was initially evaluated for placement in medium Earth orbit (MEO) before AFRL decided GEO would be a better location to assess multi-orbit PNT architecture benefits.
Navigation Technology Satellite-3 (NTS-3) is funded by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).
Once in geostationary orbit, NTS-3 would provide PNT services only over the United States to enable ease of access and installation of receivers in locations of interest.
NTS-3 will be used to augment the positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) services currently provided by GPS satellites.
At its Central Florida location, L3Harris is developing and testing the experimental Navigation Technology Satellite-3 (NTS-3) for the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory.
The expanded Palm Bay production capability enables L3Harris to develop and test the experimental Navigation Technology Satellite-3 (NTS-3).
L3Harris is producing NTS-3 using a Northrop Grumman ESPAStar bus.
NTS-3 was scheduled to launch in 2023.
NTS-3 is expected to add resilience to military PNT architecture by adding a higher layer in geosynchronous Earth orbit.