BlueGPS gives satellite manufacturers a real-time view of production by connecting the location of parts, spacecraft, tools, equipment, and people with process context and production systems. Scale output, improve manufacturing flow, coordinate material and test resources, and verify critical operations without compromising reliability.
See how work actually moves through assembly, integration, and test. Identify delays, balance resources, coordinate Just-in-Line material delivery, remove bottlenecks, and build repeatable processes capable of supporting higher production volumes.
Verify that the correct parts, tools, equipment, and qualified people are present when critical operations take place. Create a digital record of what happened, where, and when.
Connect real-time activity on the manufacturing floor with MES, ERP, PLM, QMS, WMS, and other systems, closing the gap between the production plan and what is happening now.
Manufacturing methods designed around individual spacecraft become difficult to manage when the same processes must support tens or hundreds of units.
Limited visibility of work-in-progress makes it difficult to understand where each spacecraft, subsystem, component, or production order is within the manufacturing process.
Missing parts, unavailable tools, and shared resources create delays that become more significant as production volume increases.
Planning systems show where work should be. They do not always show where components, tools, people, and products actually are.
Materials need to arrive at the right workstation at the right time. Deliver them too early and they create congestion, handling, and control problems. Deliver them too late and production stops.
Shared resources such as thermal-vacuum chambers, vibration tables, EMC facilities, test equipment, integration areas, jigs, and specialist tooling can become production constraints as output increases.
Small delays at one operation can propagate through the production schedule, reducing throughput across multiple spacecraft.
Every spacecraft must complete the required manufacturing, integration, inspection, and test operations regardless of production rate.
Incorrect tools, components, procedures, or personnel can create defects that may only become apparent during later testing or after launch.
Manufacturers need evidence that required operations took place under the correct conditions and with the correct resources.
Increasing production creates more movements, handovers, parallel operations, and opportunities for process deviation.
Serialized components and flight hardware require traceability throughout assembly, integration, test, storage, and movement.
Once a satellite enters service, physical intervention may be difficult or impossible. Manufacturing process control therefore remains central to mission reliability.
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Move from managing individual spacecraft as separate projects toward controlling multiple units moving through production at the same time. BlueGPS creates a live view of every spacecraft and major assembly, allowing production teams to understand where each unit is, which stage it has reached, what is waiting, and what needs to happen next.
Coordinate the movement of kits, flight hardware, components, tools, and support equipment so they arrive at the correct production area when needed. BlueGPS connects physical movement with the production schedule, helping manufacturers reduce excess work-in-progress, avoid shortages at the workstation, and keep multiple spacecraft moving through production in the correct sequence.
Understand how critical test and qualification resources are being used across production. BlueGPS can track spacecraft, test equipment, fixtures, mobile resources, and access to facilities such as thermal-vacuum chambers, vibration systems, and EMC test areas, helping manufacturers identify queues, improve utilization, and increase throughput without immediately adding more capital equipment.
Use location as another layer of process control. BlueGPS can verify that the required tool, component, operator, or piece of equipment was physically present in the correct work zone when an operation took place, helping manufacturers prevent process errors rather than finding them later.
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A production plan can tell you that a satellite should be at an integration station. BlueGPS tells you whether it is actually there. Track spacecraft, payloads, subsystems, flight hardware, tools, support equipment, and production resources throughout the facility. Location events provide a live picture of production status without requiring operators to scan items every time they move.
Higher-volume satellite production requires more than knowing whether a component is somewhere in the factory. Materials must reach the correct workstation in the correct sequence and at the point they are needed. BlueGPS can track kits, serialized components, flight hardware, containers, tools, fixtures, and other production resources as they move through stores, staging areas, cleanrooms, integration areas, and test facilities. Location events can be linked with production orders and manufacturing schedules to show whether the physical flow of material is keeping pace with the plan. This supports a Just-in-Line approach in which materials are delivered when required rather than accumulating around workstations or remaining hidden in stores until somebody searches for them.
Assembly capacity is only one part of satellite production. Test and qualification can become the limiting factor as production volume increases. Thermal-vacuum chambers, vibration tables, EMC facilities, test rigs, environmental test equipment, specialist fixtures, and other resources can represent major investments. Many cannot be duplicated easily when output rises. BlueGPS provides real-time and historical information about how these resources are being used. Manufacturers can track which spacecraft is at a test facility, how long it has been there, how long it waited before testing, which supporting equipment is present, and whether the next unit is ready to enter. This makes it possible to separate true resource shortages from scheduling, staging, and flow problems.
Increasing production means understanding where time is being lost. BlueGPS records how products and resources move through each production area, including how long they wait before an operation starts and how long they remain at each process step. This converts movement into production data that can reveal constraints that conventional planning data may miss. A workstation may appear productive when measured only by booked hours, for example, while location data shows that assemblies regularly wait several hours before entering it. A test resource may appear fully utilized while losing significant time between spacecraft because the next unit, fixture, or support equipment is not ready.
Satellite reliability depends on doing the required operation with the required resources. BlueGPS uses location-based rules to verify that the correct combination of assets is present within a defined work area. A process can require the correct spacecraft or assembly, specified tool, required component, and appropriately qualified operator to be co-located before or during an operation. Instead of relying only on a manual confirmation that these conditions were met, BlueGPS can create location-based evidence automatically.
As production volume grows, simply knowing that a component exists within the factory is no longer enough. BlueGPS tracks flight hardware, assemblies, containers, kits, and other work-in-progress from receipt and storage through integration, test, rework, and dispatch. Teams can see where material is without searching stores, workstations, or staging areas. Location-based events can also update other systems when material progresses through production.
Satellite production depends on resources that cannot always be duplicated as volume increases. Integration rigs, specialist tooling, lifting equipment, mobile GSE, calibration equipment, fixtures, and other shared assets may serve several spacecraft or production areas. A shortage at one point can delay work elsewhere. BlueGPS provides location and utilization data for these resources, allowing manufacturers to understand how frequently they are used, where they spend time, and where availability is constraining production.
Location can indicate more than where something is. Movement between defined zones can also provide evidence that a product has progressed through its required manufacturing route. BlueGPS can create events when a satellite, subsystem, tool, or component enters or leaves a process area. Rules can then compare that movement with the expected production sequence. For example, the system can identify if an assembly moves toward a later production stage without completing a required previous operation, remains in a process area longer than expected, or is moved into the wrong work zone.
When quality teams investigate a problem, they need to understand what happened to a specific spacecraft or component during production. BlueGPS creates a historical record of location and movement. This data can show where an item was, how long it remained there, which tagged tools and resources were present, and which personnel were working in the same area. Combined with information from MES, PLM, ERP, QMS, or other manufacturing systems, this provides another source of evidence for production traceability and root-cause investigation.
Track spacecraft, subsystems, flight hardware, tools, equipment, test resources, and other production assets throughout manufacturing.
Coordinate kits, components, tools, and resources with the production schedule so required material reaches the correct workstation when it is needed.
Track occupancy, queue time, dwell time, utilization, and supporting resources around critical test and qualification equipment.
Trigger actions based on presence, movement, co-location, dwell time, or entry into defined manufacturing zones.
Verify that the required products, parts, tools, equipment, and people are together at the correct point in the manufacturing process.
Use movement, dwell time, queues, and work-in-progress data to identify constraints affecting production throughput.
BlueGPS provides the performance required to track production environments containing large numbers of products, components, people, tools, and resources simultaneously.
Assets tracked simultaneously
System latency
Positioning accuracy
Payback period
BlueGPS scales from hundreds to tens of thousands of tracked assets using horizontal replication and self-healing infrastructure. The platform is hardware-agnostic, allowing different location technologies and tag types to be selected according to the asset, process, facility, and required level of accuracy rather than forcing the entire production environment onto one tracking technology. Adaptive precision allows manufacturers to apply higher location accuracy where process verification requires it and broader location awareness where zone-level information is sufficient.
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