AIM-9X Acquisition

The Navy and the Air Force are jointly developing the AIM-9X short-range air-to-air missile to replace the AIM-9M missile. The Defense Department risks technical and operational problems by producing the AIM-9X missile before completing operational testing. In addition, unless a helmet-mounted cueing system designed to aim the missile is tested under realistic conditions with the missile itself, there is no guarantee that the weapon will be able to prevail in aerial combat.

GAO noted that: (1) the AIM-9X missile program includes many initiatives to reduce the risk of technical, cost, and schedule problems; (2) it uses many existing subsystems, components, and items not requiring development, and government and contractor technical experts have joined together in integrated product teams; (3) in addition, the services conducted a competitive demonstration and validation of new technologies to reduce technical risk; (4) GAO is concerned, however, about two situations; (5) the plan to start missile low-rate initial production about 1 year before completing development flight testing and before operational testing of production-representative missiles will risk later discovery of technical or operational suitability problems; (6) accordingly, at this critical juncture, Department of Defense (DOD) decisionmakers will not have enough verifiable information on the system's key performance parameters in an operational environment to make an informed production decision; (7) GAO is concerned that the helmet-mounted cueing system is being developed under a separate program from the missile even though U.S. fighter pilots need both the AIM-9X missile and the helmet-mounted cueing system to ensure that they can prevail in air-to-air combat against modern threat missiles; (8) while the separate development programs are being coordinated, there is no requirement that the missile, helmet, and aircraft modifications be thoroughly and realistically tested and evaluated together as a system of systems prior to initiating AIM-9X missile production; (9) until the weapon system is tested and evaluated using production-representative missiles and helmets, DOD decisionmakers will not have information on whether the AIM-9X weapon system's key performance parameters--such as the ability to acquire, track, and fire on targets over a wider area than the AIM-9M--are achievable; and (10) further, if all elements of the system are not produced and deployed together, the AIM-9X may not be able to prevail in aerial combat against modern threat missiles.

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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