National Missile Defense

The Defense Department (DOD) made plans in 1995 to launch the space and missile tracking system--the low satellite component of the Space-Based Infrared System--in fiscal year 2006. In February 1996, Congress directed DOD to restructure the program and deploy the first space and missile tracking system satellite in fiscal year 2002. DOD contends that accelerating deployment is not possible because technical, funding, and management problems have delayed the scheduled launch of two demonstration satellites, the results of which are necessary before deciding to begin fabricating operational space and missile tracking system satellites. However, DOD is planning to speed up deployment to fiscal year 2004 and has directed the Air Force to prepare cost estimates and program plans to support such deployment. This report reviews the space and missile tracking system to determine the effects of changing the deployment date from fiscal year 2006 (the original schedule) to fiscal years 2002, 2003, 2004, or 2005.

GAO found that: (1) its assessment of four deployment options, FY 2002, FY 2003, FY 2004, and FY 2005, that would accelerate the SBIRS-low program from DOD's originally planned FY 2006 schedule shows some potential differences in risk and variations in funding requirements; (2) the FY 2002 and 2003 options would result in higher program risk because of the high degree of concurrent activities between the planned first year of the flight demonstration and the development and fabrication of SBIRS-low satellites; (3) in addition, although program officials stated that total life cycle costs would not be affected, a substantial amount of additional funding would be required during fiscal years 1997 through 2002 because of compressing the SBIRS-development, fabrication, and deployment schedule; (4) if SBIRS-low deployment were scheduled for FY 2004, the first year of flight demonstration and SBIRS-low engineering and manufacturing development would be sequential, rather than concurrent, allowing time to assess the demonstration results before making a milestone decision on satellite development and fabrication; (5) this schedule would make program risks similar to the FY 2006 schedule, which DOD considers to be low; (6) however, considerable additional funds during fiscal years 1998 through 2003 would be required because of program schedule compression; (7) under the FY 2005 option, flight demonstration and SBIRS-low development and fabrication would also be sequential, rather than concurrent; (8) this schedule would also make program risk similar to the FY 2006 schedule; (9) funding requirements during fiscal years 1998 through 2003, however, would be less than those for DOD's original schedule for a FY 2006 deployment; (10) DOD and Air Force representatives initially informed GAO that fewer funds would be required because of planning for a more efficient production schedule; (11) in commenting on GAO's draft report, however, DOD stated that fewer funds were required because of a different satellite configuration and a lower inflation rate; (12) the widely divergent results associated with these four deployment options are directly linked to how soon SBRIS-low can and should be scheduled to support national and theater ballistic missile defenses; and (13) how Congress and DOD resolve differing views on deployment dates will determine how much program risk may be taken and what the funding requirements would be.

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.

Director: Team: Phone: