Talking to the Satellites: Exclusive interviews
The entire Global Positioning System constellation comprised of 38 satellites — with its billions of users and myriad military, commercial, consumer and scientific applications — is controlled from one room in a gray office building on a small military base about nine miles east of Colorado Springs, Colorado. The base is Schriever Space Force Base (SFB) and the room is the “operations floor” of the GPS Master Control Station (MCS). It is staffed by members of the 2nd Space Operations Squadron (2 SOPS), an active-duty unit of the U.S. Space Force, supplemented by members of the 19th Space Operations Squadron (19 SOPS), a unit of the U.S. Air Force Reserve. The two squadrons are known collectively as “Team Blackjack.”
Lt. Col. Robert O. Wray is the commander of 2 SOPS and of those 19 SOPS members assigned to the MCS. On March 16, at Schriever SFB, Wray spoke with me at length about the training and duties of his team members, the challenges they face, and what brought him to his current assignment. He then gave me a tour of the MCS and introduced me to each of the 10 people on duty. At any given time, eight of these operators are military personnel and two are civilian contractors. They receive feeds from a worldwide network of monitor stations and ground antennas, including telemetry from the satellites, that enable them to precisely monitor the satellites’ orbits and the state of their systems. The operators upload data and commands to the satellites around the clock to keep the constellation fine-tuned and respond to changing circumstances.
Two of the eight uniformed personnel in the room constitute the GPS Warfighter Collaboration Cell (GWCC), a customer interface that responds to calls from U.S. and allied military forces, as well as private companies and others who need support with GPS operations. One call might be from a military unit needing a boost in the power of the GPS signal in their area during a strike, another might be from a shipping company investigating signal interference near a port, and yet another from a federal civilian agency testing equipment. GWCC is also in daily contact with the U.S. Coast Guard’s Navigation Center and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).