[SatNews] ITT Corporation (NYSE:ITT) has passed a key milestone with the successful completion of the Critical Design Review (CDR) for the Mission Data Unit (MDU) the company is developing for the U.S. Air Force’s Global Positioning System (GPS) program, GPS III. ITT is a major teammate on the Lockheed Martin team that was selected in May 2008 by the U.S. Air Force to build the next-generation GPS III program.

The MDU CDR was conducted at ITT’s facilities in Bloomfield, N.J. on May 4-7, 2010, and demonstrated that the MDU design meets program requirements and is ready to proceed to the manufacturing phase of the program. The MDU generates all of the navigation signals for military and civil users and maintains the highly precise timing for navigation performance. The CDR was a thorough review of the hardware and software designs and demonstrated complete compliance with the rigorous Military Standards requirements. The nexgen of GPS IIIA satellites will deliver significant improvements over current GPS space vehicles, and will improve position, navigation, and timing services for the war fighter and civil users worldwide, providing capabilities yielding superior system security, accuracy and reliability.