The Space Force's fleet of missile-warning, GPS, and protected-communications satellites has racked up $11.4 billion in cumulative cost overruns above original program baselines, according to the Government Accountability Office's annual Weapon Systems Assessment (GAO-26-108457), released July 2, 2026. The report also confirmed that Pentagon leaders quietly moved in late 2025 to cancel Raytheon's Next Generation Operational Control System, the ground software meant to run the entire GPS constellation, ending a program that had been slipping and growing in cost for years.

Background

GAO's Weapon Systems Assessment is an annual scorecard on the Pentagon's largest acquisition programs, tracking cost, schedule, and testing performance against the baselines each program set when it started. This year's edition found a 32% aggregate cost escalation across Space Force's primary satellite and ground-segment programs, the driver of the $11.4 billion overrun figure. The assessment lands as the service works through a backlog of missile-warning, navigation, and tactical-communications satellites that were designed years ago but have yet to reach orbit or, in some cases, yet to reach a launch pad that works.

The ground-control side of that portfolio has been a particular sore spot. OCX was supposed to replace the aging control system for GPS satellites with modern software able to manage the newer, more capable GPS III and GPS IIIF spacecraft, including their military-grade encrypted signal. Raytheon has built OCX for more than a decade against a backdrop of recurring software delays and cost growth that GAO and other watchdogs have flagged in prior years. GAO's new report discloses that the Pentagon decided to cancel the program outright in late 2025, months before the decision became public in April 2026.

Key Details

GAO's findings span several major satellite lines within the Space Force portfolio:

  • Next Gen OPIR GEO: The Lockheed Martin-led missile-warning satellite program, estimated by GAO at roughly $9.5 billion in acquisition cost, saw about $340 million in cost growth tied to a mission-payload subcontractor's software and engineering problems. The first satellite was completed in January 2026, four months behind schedule, but its launch is now uncertain after a ULA Vulcan anomaly grounded the rocket that was slated to carry it.
  • Next Gen OPIR Polar: This roughly $5.9 billion companion program had its fiscal year 2027 funding eliminated in the administration's initial budget request before Congress restored it. GAO does not expect the first Polar satellite to launch before 2028.
  • OCX cancellation: The Next Generation Operational Control System, built by Raytheon to operate the GPS constellation, was cancelled by Pentagon leadership in late 2025 after years of software delays and cost overruns, GAO confirmed. The decision was not disclosed publicly until April 2026.
  • Protected Tactical Satcom-Global: The planned 24-satellite constellation, valued at roughly $2.9 billion, was flagged by GAO for integration risk stemming from the program's mix of commercial and military technology.
  • Launch workforce: GAO separately warned that workforce reductions tied to deferred resignations, early retirements, and a hiring freeze are shrinking the engineering and oversight capacity of the National Security Space Launch program at the same time NSSL is preparing for a surge to roughly 50 Phase 2 missions and 85 Phase 3 missions.

Across the wider portfolio of more than 100 major acquisition programs GAO assessed this year, including 13 Space Force procurements, the space and ground-segment cost growth is part of a broader pattern the watchdog has flagged: acquisition timelines and cost baselines that are consistently outpaced by the technical difficulty of building space hardware and the software that controls it. The OCX cancellation in particular represents a rare case of the Pentagon walking away entirely from a program rather than continuing to fund overruns, a decision that was not disclosed publicly for months after it was made.

What It Means for Contractors

The OCX cancellation closes out a Raytheon-led ground-systems program that had already consumed years of engineering effort and cost growth, and it signals that Space Force leadership is willing to terminate a struggling software program rather than keep funding it indefinitely — a posture contractors bidding on future ground-control work should expect to see repeated. Whatever system eventually replaces OCX's GPS-control function will represent new competitive ground for companies with modern software-defined ground-segment experience, particularly firms that can demonstrate faster integration timelines than the legacy program delivered.

For Lockheed Martin and its Next Gen OPIR GEO subcontractors, the $340 million in payload-related cost growth puts a spotlight on subcontractor performance oversight at exactly the moment the constellation's first satellite is sitting on the ground waiting for a working launch vehicle. Prime contractors managing complex payload subcontracts should anticipate closer government scrutiny of subcontractor software and engineering milestones following this disclosure, and should expect contracting officers to ask harder questions about payload-level schedule risk before award of follow-on satellites.

The restoration of Next Gen OPIR Polar's fiscal year 2027 funding after the administration proposed eliminating it shows that Congress remains willing to override attempts to zero out missile-warning programs, giving contractors on that line some near-term funding stability even as the first launch remains two years away. Companies working Protected Tactical Satcom-Global should treat GAO's integration-risk warning as an early signal that government program offices will demand more rigorous interface testing between commercial and military bus components before the constellation moves toward production.

Finally, the National Security Space Launch workforce warning is a signal worth acting on now rather than later: as the government's own engineering and oversight bench shrinks heading into a surge of 50 Phase 2 and 85 Phase 3 missions, launch providers and integrators should expect longer review cycles, more reliance on contractor-provided technical data, and possible schedule friction on launch campaigns that depend on timely government sign-off. Contractors that can offer surge staffing support or take on a larger share of technical review work themselves may find near-term openings as the government works through its own capacity constraints.

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