The Air Force gave Raytheon Co. [RTN] a $23.5 million contract extension to perform additional risk-reduction activities for the next-generation Global Positioning System Operational Ground Control Segment, or GPS OCX.

Raytheon will identify and mitigate program risk to create a roadmap to keep the program on budget and on schedule.

Thus far, Raytheon met its major program milestone requirements on or ahead of schedule.

The team expects a final request for proposal in the next few months.

That original contract was awarded by the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles Air Force Base in November 2007 to produce the new control segment for current and future GPS systems.

The Raytheon team includes ITT, The Boeing Co. [BA], Infinity Systems Engineering, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, SRI International and Braxton Technologies.