Defense Support Program

Ground Station Upgrades Not Based on Validated Requirements Gao ID: NSIAD-93-148 May 21, 1993

GAO believes that it is premature to upgrade Defense Support Program ground processing stations, part of a strategic surveillance and early warning satellite system, because the Air Force has not completed validation of operational requirements as mandated by military regulations. GAO also found that including global processing capability in the upgrades may not be cost-effective. Global processing would enable the Air Force to process data generated by the total Defense Support Program satellite constellation network at a single ground station. Air Force officials said, however, that there are no corresponding plans to reduce the number of ground stations. This factor, together with an incomplete requirements process, raises considerable doubts about the Air Force's plan to spend $95 million to upgrade the stations.

GAO found that: (1) upgrade of System 8 ground station software and hardware is premature, since the Air Force has not yet validated operational requirements; (2) the Air Force is currently in the process of validating operational requirements for the DSP satellite and ground station network system; (3) including global processing capability in the System 8 upgrade may not be cost-effective, since the Air Force does not plan to reduce the number of DSP ground stations; and (4) the Air Force has not approved an operational concept for employing central global processing capabilities in DSP stations.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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