Ballistic Missile Defense

The Navy Area Theater Ballistic Missile Defense program has experienced schedule slippages totaling about 14 months due to several factors, including technical problems in the two flight tests conducted prior to the engineering and manufacturing development phase. Further schedule slippages are possible because of the acquisition plan's highly optimistic schedule for conducting operational tests. The Navy plans to begin missile production before conducting any operational tests of the system. The Navy contends that low-rate initial production of the missiles must begin in June 2000--five months before system-level developmental and operational tests are scheduled to begin--because it urgently needs the system and it needs to maintain an efficient flow in missile production. GAO questions the Navy's rationale for the criticality of initiating low-rate initial production.

GAO noted that: (1) the Area program has experienced schedule slips totalling about 14 months due to several reasons, including technical problems in the two flight tests conducted prior to the engineering and manufacturing development phase; (2) further schedule slips are possible because of the acquisition plan's highly optimistic schedule for conducting operational tests; (3) slippages in completing these tests could result in the system remaining in a low-rate production phase longer than planned; (4) the Navy plans to begin production of Area program missiles before conducting any operational tests of the systems; (5) according to the Navy, it needs to begin low-rate initial production of the missiles in June 2000--5 months before system level developmental and operational tests are scheduled to begin--because of the urgent need for the system and to maintain an efficient flow in missile production; and (6) in GAO's opinion, two factors raise some questions about the Navy's rationale for the criticality of initiating low-rate initial production, namely: (a) a prototype system capability consisting of two cruisers equipped with User Operational Evaluation System missiles will be in service at that time; and (b) an earlier version of the Standard missile will still be in production, diminishing the need for low-rate production of the Block IVA missile to avoid a production gap.

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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