blighting a quorum being present the subcommittee on the national security and foreign affairs hearing entitle g p s can we avoid a gap in service will come to order i ask unanimous consent that only the chairman and ranking member of the subcommittee be allowed to make opening statements without objection so  again good morning and today the subcommittee on national security and foreign affairs will continue as oversight of the defense procurement with a hearing that focuses on a technology that most americans find very familiar g p s or global positioning system g p s was invented by the united states for the purpose of assisting the military in combat operations it has now expanded to all manner of industries from personal transportation assistance to commercial aircraft navigation to emergency medical response made technologically possible by a group of satellites known as constellation position in such a manner that when communicating with davis on the ground we can pinpoint a location anywhere in the globe as an acquisition program g p s service falls within the clear responsibility of the department of defense most notably the air force however it affects multitudes of uses fabiana military civilian government agencies rely on it as do commercial industries personal uses in the international community indeed is as much a part of the world's infrastructure as it is a critical system for national defense unfortunately that reliance is at risk of being this place this morning's hearing was called in light of the subcommittees requested general government accountability report entitled global positioning system significant challenges in sustaining and upgrading widely used capabilities and this report g a o write documents weaknesses in the procurement of upgrades to g p s satellites as well as a negative effect that these failings have had on current and future efforts the current block upgrade of g p s g p s two s as over on its original estimated cost of seven hundred twenty nine million dollars by an additional eight hundred seventy million dollars in addition the block will be completed three years late this is not a new problem for the deposit of defense procurement we have another situation where the contractor given total system responsibility for the development could not execute the job either on time or on budget according to the g a o no major satellite program under taken in the past decade has met a schedule of goals it would seem the g p s is no exception what was billed as an effort to streamline the acquisition process instead resulted in a lack of oversight and control by the airports in the planning of the science just doesn't bode well for the next g p s block upgrade g p s three a which just began in may of last year under an extremely aggressive acquisition schedule the air force is engaged a different company and plans greater oversight for this block the g p s three a contract was intended to be reminiscent of the days before acquisition reform when the government track contracts closely rather than letting the companies run free there's a novel idea that sounds good however like the plot a predecessor g p s block in so many other department defense pro cost plus type contract meaning the government will pick up the tab no matter how expensive it ends up becoming this system not only hinges the accountability on behalf of the contractor to the government but also hinders the accountability of the government to the taxpayer i look forward provide ninety five percent of alle ability of service which has been achieved to a minimum twenty four satellites in the g p s constellation with the aging of satellites in the g p s constellation there are serious questions about whether that availability can be maintained i direct your attention to the monitors and either side of the room the graphics on the screen to pick the probability of maintaining this twenty four satellite commitment the first graphic shows the probability of a twenty four satellite constellation falling to awfully eighty percent in the two thousand and eleven two thousand and twelve time frame the second graphic depicts a scenario where if the g p s three block encounters even just a conservative two year delay the probability of maintaining a full service constellation drops precipitously starting in october two thousand and thirteen possibly going as low as ten percent by two thousand and eighteen in light of recent history of trouble that we are wholly relying on the scope on the hope that the g p s acquisition schedule holds as it stands today this brings us to a second and equally important set of issues how is the department defense preparing for this potential occurrence and what impact may be to users of the gap does occur the reality is that from an acquisition perspective we are nearing the eleventh hour the president's fiscal two thousand and ten budget terminates funding deposited defense and uses the a robust dialogue in order to ensure that user requirements are met and funded uses up prepared for any possible reduction in service and the g p s industry can be involved in discussions about potential mitigation strategies s is a critical acid in our economy and to our security it's unfortunate that we may find ourselves in a position of weakness because we have not yet learned to get our procurement house in order my hope is that today's hearing will provide the opportunity for all parties to come to the table to aerate address where she has responsibility for g a o assessments of military and civilian space acquisitions this chaplain has also led a variety of the part of defense wide contracting related and best practice of valuations for the g a o the chaplain holds a b a from boston university and an m a acquisition programs served in a wide variety of space research acquisition and operation roles within the air force and the national reconnaissance office general castle and holds a b s from the united states air force academy and a ph d from massachusetts institute of technology dr steve huybrechts currently serves as the principal director of a c three space and spectrum of the office of the secretary of defense where he has oversight responsibility for most of the nation's military space command and control communications navigation was there meteorology oceanography and spectrum allocation activities which like to take on similar responsibilities previously he was assigned to the air force research laboratory where he was responsible for selecting and managing many of the nation's highest priority space experiments as well as directing the air force's research portfolio of spacecraft power structures and control technologies huybrechts holds a ph d from stanford university i want to thank all of you for making yourself available today and sharing your substantial expertise is the policy of the subcommittee to about a minute left and the red light comes on the floor opens you drop through if you go to the five minutes but generally we try to hold off on that drastically we'll let you go a little bit over because we've testimony want to hear what you have to say but we do want to have a chance to have some the report covers our findings on the acquisition of the satellites the ground control equipment the military user quitman as well as the larger coordination of g p s today i just want to highlight what we believe are the most important takeaways of our work and sure all three acquisition programs have had major issues in development which is had major consequences for g p s users the g p s to have satellite acquisition program for example as you mentioned was delayed three years due to an array of issues including requirements changes a lot of expertise in building the g p s satellites on the contractor side lacks program oversight and technical problems that the program is still dealing with this couple with the aging of satellites in orbit the decrease in the number of satellites that were planned for the two f program and schedule risk going forward with the three a program present a risk of a capability gap military user qui acquisitions have also been delayed considerably due to funding attention this is also had severe consequences for users purposely reopened already manufactured satellites ten years ago install a capability that would lessen the effect of jamming a g p s for military users but today because the delays in the production of military use are put meant we may not see that capability be taken advantage of for another ten years lastly because of developmental delays ground control equipment for g p s cannot presently support some capabilities of the new in orbit with regard to the potential gap and satellite capability our analysis as you said shows that have both the two s and three aid programs are executed on schedule there's still just an eighty to ninety percent probability that the g p s consolation will stay above twenty four satellites with a two year delay the probability drops to as low as ten percent a couple notes about our analysis one we largely replicated the methodology employed by the aerospace corporation and relied on their reliability parameters we matched the results of our analysis of what could happen without there's a lag with the result of our space corporations to their measures available for the air force to deal with the gap by just turning off a secondary payload for periods of time but this produces other tradeoffs that need to be considered moreover such measures may not be able to compensate if there are long delays and schedule to be our analysis is based on the commitment of the air force to maintain  twenty four satellite constellation and many users civilian and military have expressed a desire for thirty or more satellites particularly to ensure coverage in mountainous and urban areas for the air force insists that it's on a good track to meet the schedule for the three a program and we agree that it is commanding air force for taking a number of actions to make the program more executable however it's important to remember the program i faces their air force and has to pay off three years of what was done for the two f program and it's still not clear whether the two f program has overcome its schedule problems also the program is not merely replicating to f it is aiming to no major space program in recent years has been delivered on time some programs that have also tried to adopt better practices for development have still run into schedule delays as we pointed out in other work some space programs are facing delays as long as seven years so in our view there are reasons to be concerned about the schedule for g p s moreover as mentioned before even without a delay there still up to a twenty percent chance the constellation will fall below twenty four clearly that allow and wants attention from senior leaders and everyone involved in g p s with your recommendations are focused on and which concurred with before i conclude i would like to point out that we also focus on the larger coordination of s among several agencies the international community and others this is a very broad area which was frankly impossible to audit comprehensively in the time that we had but it was clear through our discussions and analysis of documents that there is confusion on how civilian agencies should get their needs met by g p s and frustration on the part which is focused on keeping the program executable i look forward to the discussion and to the second panel because it will also shed light on the degree that users are aware of risk facing the program and whether their position to manage those risks that concludes my statement and i look forward to talking more about the report thank you very much general statement for the record so limit my opening remarks g p s provides accurate location and time information in all weather day and night worldwide it's vital to military and civil activities including mapping aerial refueling weapons search and rescue operations banking geodetic survey and agriculture the air force as a developer operator and stewart for g p s is committed to maintaining g p s as the gold standard for positioning navigation and timing information as your committee has has noticed and this hearing is is evidence a sure g p s capability is critical to success for many missions from humanitarian relief to military operations the air force is committed to continuity this critical service to that in sustained of the constellation is our number one priority in addition we continue to make improvements to the constellation including new civil signals more jam resistant military codes new receivers increasing accuracy and integrity of the service the foundation for success both technically and schedule wise lies in our mission assurance process mission assurance is a disciplined application of management system engineering and quality principles over the entire lifecycle to ensure mission needs are satisfied it's a culture we work hard to rebuild at the space and missile systems product center that permeates the g p s team as ingrained throughout all its  simultaneously senior leadership across the air force department defense and transportation have committed to g p s program success is shared goal enhances capability synchronization budget advocacy and stability and provides the support we need to deliver execute our plan therefore sir is committed to maintaining g p s as the premier provider of positioning navigation and timing services we have high confidence plan to sustain and modernize this critical national capability thank you for inviting me here today i'm ready to answer your question enduring freedom the system plays never increasing role in a wide range of missions including counterinsurgency operations force structure protection collection of intelligence and strike and strike of time critical target i appreciate the chance to again highlight the importance context what we're doing here and i understand that the the a voice is excited about its mission or whatever but we have some serious difficulties here in issues that i think had to be confronted on that let me start dr written testimony did address the two questions that the  the department of defense concurred with recommendations and while they were they done anything about the report just went out so i don't see what they've done yet the in describing their concurrence they pretty much said the leadership structure that's in place serves them well and what we're concerned about is that there's a lot of people that have a hand in the g p s program and it's not always clear of and that's where we see a huge delay getting that user quitman on to weapons systems so the military services have their control over that issue acquisition technology and logistics have defense sets policy oversight the office of the chairman of the joint chiefs sets technical standards for functional integration across this enterprise and we've been through this in several ways if you may recall the original field  schedule and cost constraints and services to integrate into his weapon system so our job in the air force is to create an opportunity for that program manager to have good choices economical and their oversight role we in the air force are accountable for the for the for the integration into air force weapon systems but we also decentralized that so that the program manager of those particular weapon systems are the first line of accountability of the integration of a new service like g p s or satellite communication or any other service into their particular program this is an effort of some complexity and it's zation but it's a balance between the specialized nature of a service like g p and take the lead from your question let me step through a couple of of reactions to the report to start with with this risk of a gap as the g a o indicated they followed the methodology and the technical assumptions that we use in the air force to monitor that those assumptions were provided to them some time ago about bought a year ago and in that time some things have  changed lifetime assumptions are a bit like actuarial tables with people except we don't have human history to base them on we've got a much shorter history of population the specific population we base it on is the flying population of g p s to our satellites if we were to recalculate it it would be only about half the depth that it is today the second comment that i would make and the g a o did acknowledge this in their report is that the model is on a predicted launch and it's to make they'll have choices to make about how fast they actually launch the satellites and they'll have choices to make about the way they spend the power on the satellite so when we when we take all of us in the whole   in the g a o report so the g a o report is accurate in far as those technical assumptions are what happens we think that there are many choices that will allow us the way to to not face those put in well our point is you can turn off those secondary sources and conserve a lot of power but that needs to be a discussion that needs to take place precisely for what you're saying that to look at what other gaps you might be facing in other capabilities also with regard to predicted launch raids it's important to know that last year we had a lot of issues in launch manifest a lot of back up so even what you assume can be a good launch rate may not turn out to be the case with regard to the assumptions of data being based over a year ago i would like to know that we held up our report a little bit longer so that we could receive data from deity that was came to us in march two thousand and nine updated all our analyses and that's what you see reflected appeared in other documents including described but not in the chart form in the report that do you delivered to congress on the g p s system in december two thousand and eight so the concern about gaps is a long term one because basically a lot of satellites are in orbit are aging and there's only you know you do have measures you can take to conserve power and stretch out the constellation there been times before where people have been worried about gaps and the air had a total of two hundred ninety five billion dollars in cost overruns on just seventy two largest weapon systems and nobody nobody got upset about that apparently you're not supposed to criticize the military in any way today and i think in part it's because the figures are so high that nobody can really comprehend it people did get upset about the three hundred twenty eight thousand dollar photo mission to new york city maybe they can understand that a little bit better but now according to our memorandum one billion six hundred million has been spent on this program and yet it's still not completed and it's eight hundred seventy million over budget experiment of acquisition streamlining that we now look back and say was not successful and so the combination of those have added up to the cost and schedule growth that the jail has right reflected on the jail also noted for every one of those we've taken steps to ensure that those circumstances aren't being repeated on the g p s block three program we believe that the industry consolidation is  stable that the supplier base is healthy they have a business volume that tells us that we can count on doing business with the same people that we signed the contract with now admittedly that's subject to circumstances beyond defenses control but describe words adequate to express my feelings about this because i have a feeling that if we can have this same hearing a year two years from now we're going to hear that there's even more  management scheduling people to fork over all the responsibilities of things or inherently government and turning it over to private industry as if they were going to to do everything with those self interest at all i don't know who is responsible for that decision i'd like to know whether anybody's head rolled for you nobody body that lost their job for changing the system of what apparently we have written testimony on the records on the original program manager for the first g p s system that went on time and within budget and then some genius decided to change that process and put what they call reform and take out all of the protections of safeguards for the taxpayers money and for the end user ability so who made that decision general dr and who's had who went from a system where you had people oversight you had government people at the industries places watching over this we had schedules who knew what they were doing how to account for variations we had program managers watching it every day to assist and we just gave it to the contractors have a nice day i mean who's responsible for that white house that was made somewhere in the department of defense and what a question as to who in that part of the fence at what level and what particular decided to go through a program that was operating perfectly well to a system that gave it all over to the oversight relaxed quality inspections were fine it was found with the coast guard program bluewater and they gave all the contractors the same contractor they want to design the one to build the one to oversee and then when all that went wrong they gave the same contractor the same if people qualified to do the program manager are you having difficulty finding enough people qualified to take care of your systems including this particular system mr chairman that is an issue that does concern your force in fact the secretary of the air force released a plan called the acquisition improvement plan tied to his strategic goal of capturing acquisition excellence you plan just this week one of those elements is precisely aimed at growing and qualifying and training the acquisition workforce so  i share your concern that human capital is the heart and soul of good oversight and we're committed to the health of that workforce that's the that's the career that i grew up in i have a personal sense of  commitment to growing the next generation of leaders in that role and i'm really pleased to see my service secretary support that agenda are you able to share a copy of that department you would appreciate a doctor you want to add i think that i just very close out of what is that apartment door with respect to what we're told is a shortage of qualified people in the pipeline to do program management and do scheduling on projects of this nature to focus on not making the mistakes in the past for this type of program would be difficult because you're trying to advance technology and there's a lot of when we've tried to express arrangements for first base programs it was done at the don't we ultimately even on a cost reimbursement contract reserve the prerogative to decide whether charges are allowable and lastly with respect to the contract type i'd point out that the g p s three a program at this stage is in its development paid when that caused a slowdown in an overrun what other exercise would take it out of the contract to protect the taxpayers rights as i think we have a right to know that they were getting bonuses and fees and other things for taking a self report that we have put extensive pre competition risk reduction activities into the program i think it's evidence of success that we have a functioning engineering brass board director of research and engineering were tested to the technological readiness part of internal due diligence so i'm confident that we started this program on a good foot now you  we've chosen to structure the g p s three program in a way to preplan those insertions and what i mean by that is that we have a capability for the for the final product version of g p s three that includes a number of low risk provide the room to grow for the higher risk features we will make separate decisions as the requirements for those higher risk functions further power growth additional signals additional security features and  detailed assessment of alternatives and risk assessment and decide what package of those are ready for including a second block or potentially a third block now this isn't a win all around our military had to reconcile that they would be patient enough to wait longer than they might have the assurance we gave up is that we had a higher confidence of delivering what we had committed to in exchange for that and not take as long as the last panel to the fact we want to hear from you we may i don't have that much of a question rolling back and forth on that but we want to hear from you about what you know about potential issues that are arising with that and how it's going to impact your particular  area on that so now we're going to receive testimony from the second panel let me introduce each of you general larry d james is the commander of the fourteenth air force air force base command in command of the joint functional component command the space strategic command invented air force base california he leads more than twenty thousand five hundred personnel responsible for providing missile warning space a very arty space situational awareness satellite operations space launch and range operations general jane soles of b s in the united states air force academy and an m s from the massachusetts institute of technology as karen van dyke is the director of a position navigation and timing research in innovative technology administration in the department of transportation vand was a member of a team that conducted a study for the opposite of the secretary of transportation to identify and g p s monitor abilities interference mitigation techniques for all modes of transportation as van dyck calls both the b s that m s and the university of massachusetts is also currently president mike international l l c a consulting practice concentrating on policy and regulatory issues affecting various issues in high technology trade he served a ten years with the central intelligence agency working on expert control and technology policy of the committee to swear in witnesses before they testified please stand and raise your right hand do you solemnly swear to tell the truth the whole truth not about the truth thank you regular places like that all of the witnesses have answered in the affirmative as with the first panel you are full written statements will be answered on the record there's five minute opening statements the lights are the same for the second panel as it were for the first and they will go to questions if the panel members of here have any  general would you please start with chairman tyranny and ranking member flake thank you for the opportunity to be here today i'm honored to be here as the commander of the joint functional kimono command for space it's a privilege to address you on our role in operating the global positioning system as well as represent the combatant commander users around the globe my testimony today focuses on the importance of g p s of the war fighter the health of our current constellation and u s or teacher command strategies to ensure the most rob space based positioning navigation and timing capabilities are provided by the g p s constellation certainly as we have heard earlier as we look to the importance of g p s we understand that g p s provides that key to your position navigation time in data to users worldwide and has truly become essential to us national security and economic well being g p s is the centerpiece of global p n t services and the g p s constellation enables an ever increasing arsenal of military and civil applications successful military operations strong communications links operational relationships and reach back ensure that u s reteaching command provides the combat and facts that the u s combat commanders need around the globe as we look at our constellation health and status we have today exceeded requirements by maintain a constellation of thirty operational satellites and we've achieved sub three meter accuracy with that constellation as you heard earlier by employing residual operations and power management we have optical options to maintain full g p s capabilities and ensure continued support global users we must continue to focus on future requirements for g p s capabilities matching future user requirements with technological advances well allow us to you command to provide the most advanced and reliable space affects in response to the growing demands of the nation's g p s users in conclusion the united states dependence on g p s across our military civil and commercial users requires p n t capabilities to ensure our ability to safely and effectively operate in diverse environments the d o d must continue to build the relationships processes and capabilities within the global space community that allow us to operate effectively together to meet our national security objectives thank you very much thank you general  tierney ranking member flake and member of the subcommittee i'm chairing vandyke acting director for position navigation and timing in the u s department of transportation's research an innovative technology ministration rida i appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to areas commerce for example today's construction farming mining survey and traffic management systems have become dependent on g p s it allows agriculture operations to continue through low visibility conditions such as rain fog in dark a federal aviation administration's next generation transportation program next gen is a wide ranging transformation of the national transportation system to meet demand and support economic viability of the system next gen will reduce fuel burn in greenhouse gas emissions a lot more direct time based routing enable safer operations and reduce runway incursions united airlines already has pioneered the use of tailored arrivals based on g p s from honolulu to san funding the d o t portion of g p s martin's civil capabilities is critical to ensuring that the g p s three program remains on schedule to ensure a future constellation sustainment the department of transportation is confident that the department of defense will continue to operate g p s after above the minimum g p s format standard commitment of twenty one healthy satellites ninety percent of the time twenty four healthy satellites ninety five percent of the time and will find innovative methods to extend the life of the g with g p s augmented by watch these impacts are reduced supporting minimum availability requirements of ninety nine percent or more however like any radio navigation system g p s is vulnerable to interference that can be reduced but not eliminated in two thousand one transportation system center the vulnerability assessment of the transportation infrastructure relying on the global positioning system the findings of this assessment indicated that was aware enough within the transportation community a timing architecture study initiated in two thousand and six by the department depends on department of transportation the overarching goal of this architecture which u p s s its cornerstone is intended to overcome identify capability gaps and achieve an evolutionary have to thank chairman tierney ranking member and distinguished members of the subcommittee for providing an opportunity to this important topic global positioning system or g p s is one of the great success stories involving a shared national asset  national model of successfully balancing military and civilian equities to serve a broad and diverse range of national interest from national security and public safety to enabling critical infrastructures advancing scientific research facilitating local government productivity enhancing the productivity and competitiveness of diverse industries that are important to our economy and serving million of injured individual americans every day g p s is a model of government industry cooperation contributing to the national economy through the entrepreneurial creation of companies industries and jobs deriving value for users from integrating g p s positioning navigation and timing information into applications and solutions the initial military investment in g p s has not only met military choir ments and demonstrated invaluable military utility for the war fighter it also provided a signal for civilian use at little to no additional cost the dedicated men and women of the u s air force space command have achieved some per bopper ational management of the g p s constellation for all users under g under airforce stewardship of g p s this operational excellence together with predictable us policy over two decades has given the global community a stable reliable signal that has provided a solid foundation for tremendous private sector investments in receiver and applications innovation the result of this in light u s approach has been the worldwide adoption of g p s as a global information utility providing major productivity benefits to the nation it is difficult to say with precision just how big the g p s industry is because it touches and contributes to so many different applications and areas in so many ways some recent estimates have impressive numbers such as sixteen to fifty billion dollars per year or more depending on how one counts direct and indirect effects of g p s g p s is a core information technology for many industries that are key to the u s economy examples include agriculture aviation construction vehicle navigation fleet management public safety geographical information systems land use environmental monitoring earthquake monitoring wildlife monitoring disaster management telecommunications the nine one one cell phones mapping mining marine transportation surveying infotainment i could go on probably for hours but trust me there's at least a couple of hundred more more impressive than the aggregate value of u s or worldwide g p s industries the effect the s can have on the productivity and competitiveness of key industries g p s enhances productivity at times as much as thirty percent through exploitation of precise positioning navigation and timing information it is not an exaggeration to say that g p s is everywhere not only where we commonly in almost ubiquitously see it such as in consumer car navigation devices such as on star of the garmin on the dashboard it is their essential and critical even where you don't realize that whenever you make a call on your cell phone withdraw money from use g p s precise time signals for synchronization and fault detection the road you drive on may have been built by construction equipment guided by g p s not only has the term g p s become a common term in the public lexicon it has become an essential and critical utility on which public and private in infrastructure is dependent us industry has been a major factor and leader in the development of today's g p s industry through entrepreneurial vision technological innovation and private sector investment but we have not done this alone the u s government  promoted and encouraged development by establishing maintaining and reinforcing a stable policy framework that is consistently received farsighted in bipartisan support is been a true partnership of shared visions discussions and debates cooperation and coordination this is impossible through the open dialogue that is taking place since the early days of g p s some twenty five plus years ago between civilian and military industry and government on technical and policy issues as the technology system and applications have evolved as we move forward to new generations of g p s satellites and signals the challenge is to maintain this impressive level of reliability and stability successful adopt modernize civilian g p s signals will occur if the installed user base can continue to trust the consistent and stable policy framework that the us government is providing g p s for two decades the new signals will need to sustain a legacy of accuracy availability and reliability established over the past twenty years the adoption  a testament to the trust of users in the air force stewardship users rely on the ability of the air force to operate and maintain the satellite constellation and stable signal structures that serve the warfighter and diverse a billion users in a way that enhances both our national and economic security we strongly encourage the continuation of the open and balanced dialogue between all stakeholders in providers civilian and military industry and government our industry association strives to be an objective information resource to support this dialog thank you for the opportunity and i'd be happy to answer any questions you may have ill be within five minutes thank you understand the issues and we're hopeful that they'll be comprehended in the future strategy i assert a painless approach to this i hope for for all of you this is really three things i think we want to know and put on the record from you i'm going to lay all of them out of the just go left or right  give you a chance to respond we are interested in the awareness throughout either your particular entity or industry that you are area that you represent the awareness of the concerns raised by the government accountability office report  you've identified potential mitigation strategies to lessen the effect on your company or entity or association and event there's a diminished availability to the worst case scenarios laid out that report and lastly what's your status of preparation to implement any such strategies  john in terms of the awareness certainly at the space my position and strategic command air force base command all of those entities because are so closely intertwined with with the acquisition community we certainly are very aware of the g a o report  the constellation management issues and those sorts of things and speaking for the broader combatant commanders out there the scent comes in the pay comes of the world i can't say that they are necessarily aware that there is a potential of possible degradation in the future  concern obviously is more near term focused in my getting my g p s signal today and so on certainly as a representative of those combatant commanders we go out and educate the theater on what they can and can't do with all of our space systems and we'll continue to do not to affect any user in terms of the potential mitigation strategies of which is where i would address that question we as the operators of g p s out of schriever air force base in colorado as you heard earlier have a variety of things that we look  at certainly first of all we have residual satellites we generally only operate a certain number of what we call p r n codes for for the constellation and so right now we have three satellites that are not part of that constellation but that can still provid effective navigation signal that's just due to the limitations of the of the ground system in terms of how many satellites we can actually operate in at the in the constellation so we have three residual spacecraft right now we bring those out of the residual mode every six months to test them and make sure that they still have a valid navigation signal so that's one of the mitigation strategies we currently have as as satellites older satellites no longer can fit into the constellation we still retain them as a viable system that we can bring in should we have an unexpected failure the second piece of that is as you heard earlier is power management and that is one way to again extend the life of a particular spacecraft and again there is a lot of analysis that will go into that in terms of how does that affect the other user the new detection system user again as you heard as we continue to launch new satellites we continue to populate that new detection system capability and they do not require a full twenty four satellite capability so so we have options there with the older satellites to power manage and extend of satellites where you have less accuracy where you have less coverage time and so on and we managed by where we actually placed a particular spacecraft in the constellation so so in terms of how we  do think about this we have thought about this we do have plans to address this as we move to the future and we see how the constellation of laws and how those satellites are delivered to us for lunch thank you very  probably mainly because g p s works and has worked reliably for many many years when you go to the faucet turn on the water in your house it works you don't think about it you only think about it if you have a warning that something going to happen or has happened and you need to take adjustments to compensate for that so the awareness issue yes and no engineers technical people people in the manufacturing community yes what would be the impact of gaps in coverage degradation of services again difficult to say because of the broad scope and reach of g p s into different types of applications mitigation plans and strategies yes again difficult to say depends on if it happens when it happens where it happens to whom it happens degree of disruption again difficult to pinpoint exactly there's a wide variety of areas public safety areas like air transportation like marine transportation the nine one one some of the critical timing applications if there was a serious degradation that would cause a disruption outage of g p s yes it would be felt and noticed however the people who put the systems together are very prudent and very cautious so they're usually backup systems already in place because not only from a degradation of constellation status but there are other factors that could cause a vulnerability to the system and these of largely been accommodated to a certain degree far as the consumer and if there is a degradation of service well you tend to get that anyway when you're using g p s in a casual recreational environment now the g p s unit in your car frequently is blocked by tall buildings heavy tree cover etc as you're driving along this in effect reduces the number of effective satellites you can see or the optimal navigation solution that you're using doesn't mean that the whole system goes down it becomes useless  again it may compromise some degree of accuracy or availability but in general it doesn't cause a major problem if this becomes systemic endemic over a long period of time then i think the biggest problem you see is a loss in space they are solely dedicated to managing that constellation and providing uploads when required they can determine when a signal is starting to degrade below a certain level and then they actually put an upload into the spacecraft to update its position so that then we maintain that hawaii so we're constantly looking at the cost elation in the satellites and measuring their accuracy because over time that accuracy does degrade and so we monitor that twenty four hours a day seven days a week and provide those up accuracy below three meters and so what please sir below three meters now again that's better than the specification that we have because we have a good number of satellites that are very capable with very accurate atomic clocks on board capabilities it is a very layered problem as we said earlier it's not a black and white thing we can manage this we can we can look through in terms of power in terms of clocks in terms of updates in terms of where we place the satellites in the constellation to make sure that