[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 111-10]
THE FUTURE OF MISSILE DEFENSE TESTING
__________
HEARING
BEFORE THE
STRATEGIC FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
FEBRUARY 25, 2009
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STRATEGIC FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California, Chairman
JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio
LORETTA SANCHEZ, California HOWARD P. ``BUCK'' McKEON,
ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey California
JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island MAC THORNBERRY, Texas
RICK LARSEN, Washington TRENT FRANKS, Arizona
MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado
Frank Rose, Professional Staff Member
Kari Bingen, Professional Staff Member
Zach Steacy, Staff Assistant
C O N T E N T S
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CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2009
Page
Hearing:
Wednesday, February 25, 2009, The Future of Missile Defense
Testing........................................................ 1
Appendix:
Wednesday, February 25, 2009..................................... 45
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WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2009
THE FUTURE OF MISSILE DEFENSE TESTING
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Tauscher, Hon. Ellen O., a Representative from California,
Chairman, Strategic Forces Subcommittee........................ 1
Turner, Hon. Michael, a Representative from Ohio, Ranking Member,
Strategic Forces Subcommittee.................................. 3
WITNESSES
Coyle, Hon. Dr. Philip E., III, Former Director, Operational Test
and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Defense..................... 28
Francis, Paul L., Director, Acquisition and Sourcing Management,
U.S. Government Accountability Office.......................... 30
McQueary, Hon. Dr. Charles E., Director, Operational Test and
Evaluation, U.S. Department of Defense......................... 4
Mitchell, Donald C., Chief Engineer for Ballistic Missile
Defense, Air and Missile Defense Systems Department, Applied
Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University................... 31
Nadeau, Maj. Gen. Roger A., USA, Commanding General, Test and
Evaluation Command, U.S. Army.................................. 9
O'Reilly, Lt. Gen. Patrick J., USA, Director, Missile Defense
Agency, U.S. Department of Defense............................. 7
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Coyle, Hon. Dr. Philip E., III............................... 82
Francis, Paul L.............................................. 113
McQueary, Hon. Dr. Charles E................................. 49
Mitchell, Donald C........................................... 128
Nadeau, Maj. Gen. Roger A.................................... 73
O'Reilly, Lt. Gen. Patrick J................................. 59
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.]
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
Mr. Heinrich................................................. 163
Ms. Tauscher................................................. 147
THE FUTURE OF MISSILE DEFENSE TESTING
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Strategic Forces Subcommittee,
Washington, DC, Wednesday, February 25, 2009.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1:00 p.m., in
room 2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ellen Tauscher
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, A REPRESENTATIVE
FROM CALIFORNIA, CHAIRMAN, STRATEGIC FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE
Ms. Tauscher. The committee will come to order. The
Strategic Forces Subcommittee meets today to gather testimony
on the future of missile defense testing programs. We are
expecting a series of votes at around 1:30.
So what I would like to do is: I will do my opening
statement; the ranking member will do his opening statement;
and the best we can, our first panel, generals and Dr.
McQueary, if you could summarize your statements in five
minutes or less, then I expect that we will be about the time
that that will be called; and then we will come back and then
we will have our questions, if that will work for you.
During the past eight years, there has been a vigorous
debate over the Bush Administration's approach to testing and
deploying missile defense systems. Many, including myself, have
expressed concerns about the previous Administration's approach
to testing. Those expressions don't come from naivete or
confusion. It is because we all want an operationally
effective, suitable, and survivable system.
However, the objective of today's hearing is not to debate
what the Bush Administration did or did not do. We are well
past that point. Instead, our objective today is to look
forward and to see what specific actions need to occur to make
sure that the missile defense systems we have deployed are
operationally effective, suitable, and survivable.
The United States, its deployed forces, and its friends and
allies around the world face real threats from ballistic
missiles. That is why I voted for the Missile Defense Act of
1999, which made it the policy of the United States ``to
deploy, as soon as technologically possible, an effective
national missile defense system capable of defending the
territory of the United States against limited ballistic
missile attacks.''
So far, the testing record for missile defense systems is
mixed. According to the Director of Operational Test and
Evaluation's (DOT&E's) fiscal year 2008 Annual Report to
Congress, theater missile defense systems, such as Aegis
Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) and Terminal High Altitude Area
Defense (THAAD), continue to make significant progress in the
fiscal year 2008.
For example in 2008, the Navy's operational test and
evaluation command declared Aegis BMD to be ``operationally
effective and suitable.'' This is a major accomplishment that
we should all take pride in.
The same cannot be said of the long-range, Ground-based
Midcourse Defense (GMD) system. For the third year in a row,
the Office of the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation
stated in its annual report, ``GMD flight testing will not
support a high level of confidence in its limited capabilities.
Additional test data under realistic conditions is necessary to
validate models and simulations and to increase confidence in
the ability of these models and simulations to accurately
predict system capability.''
I would also note that, due to technical challenges, the
Missile Defense Agency (MDA) was unable to conduct any GMD
intercept tests in the fiscal year of 2008. This situation
needs to improve. Better testing must be the foundation of our
forward progress on a ground-based missile defense. It is in
this context that Congress has said the proposed expansion of
the GMD system in Europe cannot move forward without more
testing, so that we can have the highest level of confidence in
the system's capabilities.
We have two distinguished panels of witnesses for today's
hearing. Panel one includes Dr. Charles McQueary, the
Pentagon's Director of Operational Test and Evaluation;
Lieutenant General Patrick O'Reilly, the Director of the
Missile Defense Agency; and Major General Roger Nadeau,
Commander of the Army Test and Evaluation Command.
Panel two includes Mr. Philip Coyle, the former Director of
Operational Test and Evaluation; Mr. Paul Francis, Director of
Acquisition and Sourcing Management at the Government
Accountability Office (GAO); and Dr. Donald Mitchell, chief
engineer for the ballistic missile defense at Johns Hopkins
University Applied Physics Laboratory. Thank you for agreeing
to testify, gentlemen.
At today's hearing, I am particularly interested in having
our witnesses address the following issues. For all of our
witnesses, I need you to answer one fundamental question: What
specific actions need to take place during the next several
years to make sure that we have a high degree of confidence
that the Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS), especially
the long-range, Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, will
work in an operationally effective, suitable, and survivable
manner?
Furthermore, General O'Reilly, welcome. Welcome to your
first hearing as the new director.
General O'Reilly. Thank you, ma'am.
Ms. Tauscher. I understand that you have begun a review of
the Missile Defense Agency's entire testing program to
determine your long-term data requirements and testing needs. I
would like you to provide the committee with an update on that
effort and share with us any initial results that you have at
this point. I look forward to an interesting and thoughtful
discussion.
On that note, let me turn the floor over to our
distinguished Ranking Member, Mr. Turner of Ohio, who is here
at his first hearing as the new ranking member of the
subcommittee.
Mr. Turner, we are interested in any opening comments you
might have. And the floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL TURNER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM OHIO,
RANKING MEMBER, STRATEGIC FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I am very honored
to be serving with you as the ranking member of this important
subcommittee.
We are going to be dealing with very complex and
challenging national security issues, and I look forward to
working with you on these. We have had a very good bipartisan
relationship, as you and I have served on this committee and
also traveled abroad to discuss the important issues of missile
defense, and bipartisan support is so important.
What is unfortunate about the topic that we are going to
discuss today is, while many of us will dive into the issue of
technical satisfaction, of requirements, and the importance of
how we verify what our systems are capable of, there are those
who are outright opposed to these systems and will use the
concept of testing to undermine the concept of the United
States having an active missile defense system.
It is so important that we get it right, so that we have
the ability to have credible answers, and that we have a system
in place where we can defend against those that would use the
lack of testing to try to undermine our systems.
And with that, I want to discuss a little bit about where I
understand that we are. As we begin our discussion on missile
defense testing, we should start by establishing a baseline of
where we are today. The missile defense capability our Nation
has fielded today consists of 26 ground-based interceptors
(GBIs) in Alaska and California, 18 Aegis missile defense
ships, 13 Patriot battalions, 5 radar tracking system and
command and control systems.
As I have learned from intelligence analysts at the
National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC), which is in
my home district, the threat doesn't wait for us to perfect our
defenses. If, for example, North Korea were to launch a long-
range Taepodong missile today, we could use this system to
protect the American people, our forces abroad, and our allies.
As Secretary Gates recently suggested, the Pentagon was
prepared to use its missile defense capabilities to bring down
a North Korean missile if necessary. Having this missile
defense capability today as an option is the direct result of
U.S. leadership and the hard work and dedication of a strong
Government and industry team.
For the chairman and I agree that our missile defense
assets must be effective and credible. I was particularly
interested in Mr. Mitchell's written statement that our
Nation's ballistic missile defense capability cannot be
disregarded today, and will provide an even more effective
defense in the future. Therefore, continued testing to increase
the effectiveness, credibility, and flexibility of an already
deployed system against evolving threats is a commitment we all
make.
A common misconception about missile defense is that the
technology doesn't work, and that the tests are not realistic.
Even today, you can find news stories, and we will hear about
some even in this hearing, where people attempt to misconstrue
testing with the issue of whether or not the system doesn't
work.
A good starting point for us here today is to better
understand the progress made to date. What is the state of our
missile defense capabilities? As I understand it, the Missile
Defense Agency is reviewing their test plan. And there is good
alignment between them and the test community in this process.
I am interested in hearing more about what our test objectives
are, how assessments are made, where gaps and shortfalls exist,
and how the rebaseline testing program should address these.
Flight tests tend to get the most attention. However,
ground tests and modeling and simulation play equally important
roles in the test program. How are we progressing in these
areas? Are there limiting factors in testing? I am particularly
concerned about targets being the pacing item for testing. And
I am interested in an update on the targets program.
Our missile defenses are designed to counter limited
threats from North Korea and Iran. We need a better
understanding of the threats we are likely to see from these
countries, so we even know what level of countermeasures, salvo
launches, and multiple engagement launches MDA should address
in their test plans.
Testing should not be used as an impediment. On the
contrary, I worry about the impact that potential cuts may have
on testing. As we all know from experience, testing is always
the first to go when cuts are made to defense programs. I hope
the chairman and I can work together to ensure that this does
not happen. This is too important for the safety of the people
of the United States.
Lastly, let us look at the testing history. Since 2001, 37
of 47 tests have resulted in hit-to-kill intercepts, a nearly
80 percent success record. However, as the threat continues to
evolve and we evolve our missile defense capabilities, we will
continue to need more tests.
Madam Chair, I look forward to working with you and our
witnesses to manage these challenging issues to the benefit of
the protection of the American people. Thank you.
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you, Mr. Turner.
Now we will go off to our first panel. Dr. McQueary, thank
you for your thoughtful statement. It is part of the record. If
you can summarize for us, we would appreciate it. Dr. McQueary,
the floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF HON. DR. CHARLES E. MCQUEARY, DIRECTOR,
OPERATIONAL TEST AND EVALUATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Dr. McQueary. Thank you very much.
Madam Chairman, Congressman Turner, distinguished members
of the committee, good afternoon. I am pleased to be here to
have this opportunity to speak to you about the testing of the
Ballistic Missile Defense System, or BMDS as we will refer to
it.
As requested in Chairman Tauscher's letter, I will address
three areas: my assessment of the missile defense testing
programs as described in my annual report submitted on January
28; my assessment of the Missile Defense Agency's three-phase
review of BMDS; and three, test evaluation actions I see as
needed to ensure that BMDS and its elements will work in an
effective, suitable, and survivable manner.
But before I get into my prepared statement, I would like
to address a news article from Bloomberg that came out
yesterday, if I may. And I will do that very briefly. That
article fundamentally misconstrued my position on ballistic
missile testing. And I would like to set the record straight.
Specifically, the article stated, ``According to McQueary,
the U.S. defense probably wouldn't be effective, even without
the distraction of decoys.'' This is a complete distortion of
anything I have said to date on this subject. In my annual
report, I said Ground-based Midcourse Defense has demonstrated
a limited capability to defend against a simple, long-range
ballistic missile threats launched from North Korea toward the
United States. And I stand by that wording, both this year and
in the past year.
So if I may, I will get back to my main statement.
Ms. Tauscher. Yes, sir.
Dr. McQueary. First, my assessment of missile defense
testing programs to date. Overall, the MDA experienced a good
year with its ground and flight test programs, notwithstanding
the continuing challenges with targets. Aegis Ballistic Missile
Defense demonstrated the capability to detect, track, and
engage simple short- and medium-range ballistic missile targets
for a variety of mission scenarios.
The Navy's Operational Test Agency, as you observed,
indicated that the program was effective and suitable. And that
was good news. And I completely agree with you. I have already
commented upon the BMD, so I won't belabor that point.
Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, demonstrated
the capability to detect, track, and engage realistic short-
range targets. The Command, Control, Battle Management, and
Communication element, or the C2BMC, demonstrated the
capability to provide situational awareness (SA) to warfighters
worldwide and to control the Army Navy/Transportable Radar
Surveillance (AN/TPY-2) radar in its forward-based mode.
The MDA continued to increase operational realism in its
testing. The ground-test program is robust, although the MDA is
still using unaccredited models and simulation. The targets,
availability and performance limitations continue to impact
both the pace and productivity of the MDA flight testing. Even
with MDA's target program improvements, there remains
significant risk in this area.
Second, my assessment of the MDA's three-phase review of
BMDS. The MDA, General O'Reilly, has embarked on a process to
develop a revamped Integrated Master Test Plan, or IMTP, that
will document planned testing through the Future Years
Development Plan. A principal focus is to ensure that the
future testing will provide sufficient validation data to
anchor the models and simulations.
This effort directly addresses the concerns I raised last
year in my testimony before you. The three-phased review offers
a logical, well-engineered approach. And although I must
caution it will be a challenging test, I do applaud General
O'Reilly's personal commitment to the initiative.
Future test and evaluation (T&E) actions, the third item, a
combination of flight and ground testing together with
verified, validated, and accredited models and simulations are
needed to characterize the capabilities of the BMDS and its
elements. The approach being developed by MDA in the three-
phased review, if fully resourced and executed as planned,
could provide a solid foundation for an independent assessment
of the operational effectiveness, operational suitability, and
survivability of each capability block.
I see the operational test community participating in all
phases of testing to the degree that is appropriate for the
stage of development. An integrated approach that leverages
combined developmental and operational testing to the maximum
extent feasible is essential. I anticipate that much of the
data needed for the Operational Test Agency's evaluation will
be collected during the developmental phase, and from the use
of models and simulations that are validated and accredited
based upon developmental flight tests.
As we all recognize, the complexity of the systems and the
physical constraints on flight testing will necessitate
examination of much of the system's capability in ground tests
that leverage modeling and simulation.
As I discussed in my written testimony, once the MDA has
completed its developmental test objectives for a given block
of capability--and this is a key point, I believe--I would
foresee a dedicated operational test, led by the Operational
Test Agency, that would be confirmatory in nature and would
exercise the plan capability in an end-to-end fashion against a
realistic portrayal of the threat. A concurrent assessment of
training and supportability will ensure delivery of an
operationally suitable block capability.
And in conclusion, the MDA has experienced a good year, as
I said. The renewed commitment to a rigorously engineered,
disciplined and event-driven approach to flight and ground
testing is welcome. I look forward to the development of an
integrated test campaign that will ensure the delivery of
operationally effective, suitable, and survivable capabilities
to our warfighter. This concludes my remarks.
[The prepared statement of Dr. McQueary can be found in the
Appendix on page 49.]
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you, Dr. McQueary.
General O'Reilly, it is an honor to have you before the
committee. Welcome.
General O'Reilly. Thank you, ma'am.
Ms. Tauscher. It is your maiden voyage in front of the
committee. And let me tell you that in the few months that I
have got to know you as the new director of MDA, I am very,
very impressed by your willingness to work with the committee
and to be responsive. And I hope we have been equally
responsive back to you.
We are anxious to hear your summarization of your
testimony. I have read your testimony. I think it is excellent.
And the floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. PATRICK J. O'REILLY, USA, DIRECTOR,
MISSILE DEFENSE AGENCY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
General O'Reilly. Thank you, ma'am.
Good afternoon, Madam Chairman, Mr. Turner, distinguished
members of the committee. It is an honor and greatly
appreciated opportunity to testify before you today on the
Department of Defense's (DOD's) Ballistic Missile Defense
System, or BMDS, testing program.
The Missile Defense Agency, or MDA, recently initiated a
systematic review of BMDS testing in partnership with the Army,
Navy, and Air Force Operational Test Agencies, with the support
of the Director for Operational Test and Evaluation, Dr.
McQueary.
Our goal is to set test objectives that measure the
performance of critical functions necessary for robust missile
defense operations and create an event-oriented plan that
extends out as many years as necessary to collect sufficient
data to determine the operational effectiveness, suitability,
survivability, and supportability of the system.
First, I would like to describe the challenges in our
approach to testing the BMDS. Given the unique characteristics
of short-, medium-, intermediate- and long-range ballistic
missiles that threaten our deployed forces, our friends, our
allies and our Nation, no one missile defense interceptor or
sensor system can effectively counter all ballistic missile
threats.
Warfighters are not only faced with the challenge of
intercepting small objects at great distances and very high
velocities, but they have to simultaneously counter large raid
sizes involving combinations of threat missile types, and in
the future countermeasures associated with ballistic missile
attacks.
Since it is difficult to develop countermeasures that
degrade fundamentally different missile interceptor systems
operating in different phases of a threat ballistic missile's
flight, the most effective missile defense architecture to
handle the large missile raid sizes is a layering of endo-
atmospheric and exo-atmospheric missile interceptors with a
network of sensors connected and managed by a robust command
and control and communications system.
Consequently, a comprehensive test program must not only
measure the operational effectiveness of individual sensors and
interceptors, but also must measure the performance of an
integrated Ballistic Missile Defense System.
Evaluating the BMDS is likely one of the most challenging
endeavors ever attempted by the Department of Defense. Ideally,
comprehensive and rigorous testing is enabled by a stable
configuration of the system being tested, a clearly defined
threat, a consistent and mature operational doctrine,
sufficient resources to repeat tests under the most stressing
conditions, and a well-defined set of criteria of acceptable
performance. Unfortunately, none of these situations apply to
the Ballistic Missile Defense System.
The hardware and software configurations of the BMDS change
as the system continues to be developed. There are many
significant uncertainties surrounding the nature and specifics
of missile defense threats. And the creation of operational
doctrine for simultaneous theater, regional, and homeland
defense continues. Moreover, the cost of each missile defense
flight test ranges between $40 million and $200 million, making
the repetition of flight tests cost-prohibitive.
In light of these challenges, our strategy is to develop
models and simulations of the BMDS and compare their
predictions to comprehensive flight and ground test results to
validate the accuracy of those models and simulations. However,
due to the complex phenomena associated with missile launches
and associated environments, some performance measures cannot
be predicted and must be measured in flight.
I will now summarize the status of this ballistic missile
defense testing to date. Although we have had three intercepts
and three attempts in the currently deployed hardware,
configuration of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense flight
testing, to date, has been limited to the performance of the
most basic Block 1 capability against intermediate-range
ballistic-class threats.
On 5 December, 2008, we were able to demonstrate a
significant milestone by integrating space-, land- and sea-
based sensors to form a common track and intercept a 4,000-
kilometer threat-class missile. However, we were not able to
demonstrate capability against simple countermeasures due to
the failure of a component of the target. Significantly more
GMD testing is needed when considering the tremendous potential
capability of this system designed to destroy intercontinental
ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
In fiscal year 2008, THAAD intercepted target missiles, in
space and inside the Earth's atmosphere, in demonstrated
queuing to the Aegis system. THAAD testing to date has been
highly successful, with five intercepts in five attempts
against short-range ballistic missiles, four of which were
actually foreign-threat missiles. But more testing is needed
against salvo and medium-range threats.
The Aegis BMD element has successfully tested against seven
short-range ballistic missiles, one an actual threat missile.
In eight launches of the SM-3 Block IA missile, including a
successful salvo test, simultaneously destroying two short-
range ballistic missiles conducted November 2007.
As we continue to pursue the root cause of the failure of
an SM-3 Block IA missile last November, we are preparing to
test again against an intermediate-range ballistic missile
class this spring, once the root cause of the failure has been
identified and corrected. The sensor's element, which consists
of our early-warning radars, four base radars, and SPX has
demonstrated its capability in July 2008, when they all worked
together to create a common track. And that architecture also
supported the intercept of the GMD interceptor last November.
Finally, I would like to describe our current test process
and emerging results. The BMDS test review is being conducted
in three phases. Phase 1, we determine the body of data
necessary to validate the BMDS models and simulation and the
data needed to evaluate operational effectiveness, suitability,
and survivability. In Phase 1, we identified 85 critical
variables and parameters that must be tested to validate our
simulations, and 31 additional variables that we cannot model
adequately and can only be measured in flight and ground tests.
We are currently in Phase 2 of our test review, where we
determine the test venues and scenarios to acquire the data
associated with those 116 variables identified in Phase 1. An
advantage to developing a campaign of test objectives rather
than developing objectives one test at a time is that we don't
always have to test those objectives that have previously been
tested. This will reduce the cost and increase the frequency of
BMDS testing.
In Phase 3, we will identify the resources and planning
infrastructure, including targets and test ranges, to execute
those scenarios identified in Phase 2. Our goal is to complete
this work by the end of May.
In conclusion, I greatly appreciate your support as we
address issues associated with testing the Ballistic Missile
Defense System. BMDS test results send a very credible message
to the international community on our ability to defeat
ballistic missiles in flight, thus reducing their value to
potential adversaries using ballistic missiles as a strategy to
threaten our Nation, our deployed forces, our friends, and our
allies.
Contribution to U.S. non-proliferation goals is one of the
most important benefits of robust and comprehensive missile
defense testing. With your permission, I would like to submit
the remainder of my remarks in written testimony and look
forward to answering your questions.
Ms. Tauscher. Without objection, so ordered.
[The prepared statement of General O'Reilly can be found in
the Appendix on page 59.]
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you very much, General O'Reilly.
General Nadeau, this is also your first time before the
subcommittee. We thank you very much; very comprehensive
testimony that you submitted to us. The floor is yours, sir.
STATEMENT OF MAJ. GEN. ROGER A. NADEAU, USA, COMMANDING
GENERAL, TEST AND EVALUATION COMMAND, U.S. ARMY
General Nadeau. Thank you, ma'am.
Good afternoon, Chairwoman Tauscher, Ranking Member Turner,
distinguished members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you today. In my invitation to
appear, you asked me to address three specific questions, which
I have done in my written statement to the subcommittee.
I would like to take this opportunity to describe the
independent, multi-service, Operational Test Agency team that
assesses Ballistic Missile Defense System performance, the Army
Test and Evaluation Command's role as the lead Operational Test
Agency and how our team works with the Missile Defense Agency,
the Office of the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation,
and the warfighter community.
The Ballistic Missile Defense Systems development cuts
across multiple service lines. It is only natural that a multi-
service operational test team was formed to assess performance
at the comprehensive systems level. While individual service
operational test and evaluation agencies focus on the equipment
being developed in that particular service, the lead
Operational Test Agency's mission is to provide independent,
collective operational assessments of the total integrated
Ballistic Missile Defense Systems performance capabilities and
limitations.
In our role as the lead Operational Test Agency for the
Ballistic Missile Defense System, we establish an Operational
Test Agency team that interfaces with the test planning and
execution cell within the Missile Defense Agency on a daily
basis. Members from the other service operational test
agencies, as well as the Joint Interoperability Test Command
(JITC) are also part of that team.
To better facilitate a close working relationship between
us and our Missile Defense Agency counterparts, we have
positioned significant personnel resources in Huntsville,
Alabama, and Colorado Springs, Colorado to enable daily contact
and coordination with the Missile Defense Agency test planners,
modeling and simulation developers, and the warfighter. This
enables our participation in all facets of test planning and
execution among the various agencies.
We essentially sit and work side-by-side with our Missile
Defense Agency counterparts every day. We have found this
operating relationship to be extremely productive and the best
use of our collective resources. The communication flow among
agencies is greatly enhanced through the co-location of
personnel, while the independent integrity of the Operational
Test Agency is preserved through separate reporting chains.
In addition to the daily operational contact we have with
the Office of the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation,
the warfighter represented by the United States Strategic
Command (USSTRATCOM) and the service operators, and the Missile
Defense Agency--the multi-service operational test team
produces an annual operational assessment report, co-signed by
the service Operational Test Agency commanders. This document
is the Capstone Operational Test Agency document for that year.
The Army Test and Evaluation Command, as the lead
Operational Test Agency, approves the report for release to the
Director, Operational Test and Evaluation. It is used as one of
the source documents from which they prepare their annual
report to Congress.
Another activity worth mentioning is our participation in
the Missile Defense Agency's post-test reviews. At the
invitation of the Missile Defense Agency, we are able to
provide performance feedback from our perspective that assists
in identifying performance issues early, allowing for
corrective action, which saves time and money in the long run.
Madam Chairwoman, I thank the subcommittee for the
opportunity to testify today. I look forward to answering your
questions.
[The prepared statement of General Nadeau can be found in
the Appendix on page 73.]
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you, General Nadeau.
Members, we have two votes, a 15 and a 5. The subcommittee
will be in recess. The hearing will be in recess until the
subcommittee returns in approximately 25 minutes. I ask members
to come back as quickly as we can. We will go into questions of
this panel, and then we have a second panel, as you know. We
are in recess.
[Recess.]
Ms. Tauscher. Members are making their way back over from
votes. And we expect another series of votes in perhaps about
an hour. So I am going to start with our questions of our first
panel, so that we can have enough time to assess the second
panel and be sure to ask questions there too.
I had a question for General O'Reilly and Dr. McQueary.
Several of our potential adversaries have demonstrated the
capability to conduct coordinated missile attacks--and this is
something we could face in a real-world situation. Several
missile defense systems, such as Aegis BMD and Patriot Advanced
Capability-3 (PAC-3), have demonstrated the capability to
conduct both salvo launches and multiple simultaneous
engagements.
In your opinions, is a salvo test, firing two or more
interceptors at a single target, necessary to understand the
operational performance of GMD and to provide confidence that
the system works as we intended to operate it? Additionally,
what are your thoughts on the need for the GMD system to
conduct a multiple simultaneous engagement by firing multiple
GMD interceptors at multiple targets?
Dr. McQueary or General O'Reilly, whoever.
Dr. McQueary. Let me----
General O'Reilly. Well, ma'am if----
Ms. Tauscher. General O'Reilly.
General O'Reilly [continuing]. I may, I support that the
testing of all of our systems, including GMD, must include
salvo launches, because that is our doctrine. And we have a lot
of theoretical estimations on the impact of one intercept on
another interceptor flying in that area. But the phenomenology
is very complex. And there would be a tremendous amount of
empirical data gathered if we did that.
I also support a multiple simultaneous intercepts,
including GMD. However, I will need some assistance because of
the amount of telemetry at Vandenberg Air Force Base and the
safety considerations. I don't believe in their history they
have launched two interceptors at once. I do know that they
have not handled four missiles in flight at one time, which
that would require.
So ma'am, I do believe it would very beneficial to do that.
It is important. But moving beyond the salvo, there will need
to be some investment, or some commitment from national
resources in order to accomplish that.
Ms. Tauscher. Well, I appreciate that very much, General
O'Reilly. Perhaps in a subsequent conversation, you can give us
a sense for what that will entail. And----
General O'Reilly. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Tauscher[continuing]. As the budget is going to be
coming up soon, we can try to figure out how we can accommodate
something like that.
Dr. McQueary.
Dr. McQueary. I fully agree with what the general just
said. I think a salvo launch's multiple-target issues are a
phenomenology that absolutely must be examined as a part of the
program.
Ms. Tauscher. Right. Let us see.
General O'Reilly, the classified version of DOT&E's 2008
assessment for the Ballistic Missile Defense System raised a
number of concerns about the BMDS. I know that you are working
with DOT&E to address these concerns outlined in the report.
Can you just, once again, aside from what you had in your
testimony, can you kind of give us a more detailed summary on
exactly how that cooperation is folding out, and just give us
some more detail on that?
General O'Reilly. Yes, ma'am. With the DOT&E report, it
covered what had been tested, and emphasized what has not been
tested, in order to validate the models and simulations. So I
work very closely, and my staff does, with the operational test
agencies. But Dr. McQueary has been very generous in providing
his staff to observe every one of those meetings and provide us
assistance or assessments, primarily, on where there are areas
in their models and simulations that they believe we need to go
re-look. And we have done that.
So I believe that the results of this first phase are very
comprehensive, because of the fact that we have had the benefit
of DOT&E supporting us onsite, in the meetings, instead of us
just trying to interpret what was missing from the reports. And
all indications I have had from Dr. McQueary and his staff is
we are addressing those areas that we need data to be collected
in.
Ms. Tauscher. I appreciate that, General O'Reilly.
Dr. McQueary, you know, I think that there has been a
significant change in the level of cooperation between MDA and
DOT&E. And I am very appreciative of it. This subcommittee
weighed in very seriously over the last three years about that.
And I think these are very good results.
Can you give us a sense for your expectations? Let me
restate that. Can you give us a sense for the reality of that
and how that is accruing to our expectations of having the
testing regime be much more robust going forward?
Dr. McQueary. Well, I think the relationship is very good.
The relationship began to improve, from my standpoint, when
General Obering was here. We worked out some issues with him.
I am particularly pleased, as I mention in my oral
statement, about the approach that General O'Reilly has taken
toward his three-phase approach of deciding what the test
program really needs to be. And we are participants in the
discussion thereof, because there is no such thing as the test
that identifies everything. These are highly technical, complex
kinds of things.
And having discussions with the various parties who have an
interest in seeing that we do the right thing, I think is
very--right testing, I should say--is really the right thing to
do. And so I don't have anything that I would add to it.
I would also point out one other thing I would add, excuse
me--General O'Reilly and I try to meet once a week, although
that is very difficult to do, as you might be. But we do have a
time on the calendar. But we each know that we can cancel out
if we need to do so, in order to just be able to go over issues
that might be there. We meet for about 30 minutes. But I think
that is an important way of keeping the communication channel
open, because the issues are large, but they are not
insurmountable.
Ms. Tauscher. Well, the committee very much appreciates
that new level of cooperation and the congruency of your effort
to work together. And that I think is really accruing very
significantly to the program.
General O'Reilly and Dr. McQueary, a key sensor critical
for defense of the United States from a Northeast Asia attack
is the upgraded COBRA DANE radar in Alaska. We have flown at
least one missile across COBRA DANE for data collection, but
have never performed an intercept flight test using the primary
sensor and the fire control loop.
Why have we not performed a GMD intercept test engagement
using the upgraded COBRA DANE radar? Are we planning to do so?
And what test range issues need to be dealt with, if any, to
perform such a test?
Dr. McQueary. I support you.
General O'Reilly. Ma'am, we are looking at that in the next
phase. It is my expectation that we will do that. However, when
it was done last time in September 2005, we required, or we
needed the cooperation of the Russian Government, because the
launch was an air-launch target in the Russian flight
information region, it is referred to, within 12 miles. To have
an operationally realistic trajectory does require to skirt
very closely to Russian airspace.
At the time, President Putin had provided agreement and
concurred with us doing the test, with us exchanging and
allowing their Russian officers to observe the test. So that is
one issue that has to be addressed for any test up in that
region. I would look forward to that engagement with the
Russians, because I do believe that would be a very informative
test.
I believe the infrastructure and the other issues
associated with a test over the North Pacific could be
addressed straightforward through our normal processes.
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you.
Mr. McQueary. In the event that we could not do the test,
which we fully agree that it is desirable to do a real test,
DOT&E still feels, as we have reported before, that there needs
to at least be a target fly-by to test the software that was
changed as a result of the last test that was conducted. There
were some changes made, and we have not actually been able to
run an operational test.
Ms. Tauscher. Right.
Dr. McQueary. And a target fly-by would help gain
information that the system does work as it is supposed to in
target tracking.
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you.
Thank you, gentlemen.
Mr. Turner.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Dr. McQueary, I would like to get back to, just for a
moment, your initial comment that you made about the news
article that we saw where you were misquoted, and it really
leaves the impression that the system doesn't work. And that is
not at all your message, even in your written testimony. Can
you speak again about your reaction to this article and the gap
between what the article portrays as your position and your
position?
Dr. McQueary. I found out about this article at about 5
minutes of 6:00 last evening, just before I was going to the
Kennedy Center, which was not a good time to prepare oneself to
go listen to the orchestra. But Admiral McCarthy, who had sent
me the message letting me know what was there, I had sent a
response back to him. And what he tells me is that his
Blackberry died after he received my message. Now, so I will
let you infer from that what it might have said.
I was very disturbed because it was--I don't mind talking
with reporters. I don't mind having discussion about what we
do, because I try to run a very transparent organization. I do
feel, though, that when reporters have uncertainty about how
they are going to report what someone says, particularly if it
is almost a direct quote, then they have the responsibility of
making sure that that information is correct.
And this was simply blatantly incorrect and inconsistent
totally with what I have said in the last two annual reports
that we have put out about where we are in the testing. We have
consistently said that we need more modeling and simulation.
There is nothing new in that. And we all understand why that is
an important aspect of this.
But we have demonstrated, through flight testing, some
capabilities that are important. And I believe I would
characterize it, if the North Koreans launched an attack
against us this afternoon, we wouldn't say we need more test
data before we decide whether we are going to launch against
and try to intercept that. We would see how the system works,
and we would find out.
Mr. Turner. Excellent. And that is really the whole heart
of, I think, all of this discussion, is the need for systems in
place in the case where something might occur, like you just
described.
And I would like to deal with just a little bit of
terminology. On page three of your testimony, you give us a
list of where we are on a few of these. And you say the Ground-
based Midcourse Defense, GMD, demonstrated a limited capability
to defend against simple, long-range ballistic missile threats
launched from North Korea toward the United States. Next
sentence, ``Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, THAAD,
demonstrated the capability to detect, track and engage both
short-range, non-separating and single-separating targets.''
Then on the Command Control Battle Management Communication
element, you indicate again, using the word demonstrated, the
capability to provide situational awareness to warfighters
worldwide. And you go on.
And I am going to focus this for just a moment on the word
``demonstrated,'' because you are all about testing, telling us
what we know from what we have tested. But the word
``demonstrated,'' I believe you are not indicating to me that
it is the limitation of the system, it is a limitation of the
testing. In other words, the testing has demonstrated that this
system has this capability, but it might have greater
capability. Is that correct?
Dr. McQueary. It might have greater capabilities. There
might be capabilities that the system couldn't respond to as
well in that. So what it does--I was referring to in those
words specifically about what we showed as a consequence of the
test that was conducted. And indeed, we did intercept,
``kill,'' a target to demonstrate that the GMD did work in that
particular testing that we had. So to me, that was a
demonstration that the system has the capability to work.
Mr. Turner. Excellent. That is why I wanted to ask the
question, because when I read this page, I was afraid that
someone might read it as saying, you know, it only does this,
it only does that. But in reality, it is just it has only
demonstrated it in the testing scenarios that we had. It might
have greater capability. It might even perform better than what
we have currently been able to test.
Dr. McQueary. May I, just one point: when we talk about
confidence, I want to be very clear that when we refer to
confidence, you can always assume if we don't say it, we are
talking about statistical confidence. I am not in the mode of
saying, ``I don't have confidence in you or you.'' We are
talking about, from a statistical standpoint, how many tests
does one have to run in order to demonstrate mathematically, if
you will, through data, that you have a certain level of
confidence that the system is going to work.
And when I speak of confidence, that is what I mean. And
that is all I mean. I am not rendering a subjective view at
all. I am trying to convey what we need to know. And that is
why we say, over and over, we need the models and simulation,
because we will never be able to run enough real tests to
prove, with high statistical confidence, that the system can do
what it is intended to do. But with models and simulation,
verified by real testing, we can accomplish that objective.
Mr. Turner. Thank you.
And to get back to your comment on North Korea, and this is
my question next for the three of you, you know, currently the
system that we have is intended to be integrated. Each of these
individual components have unique capabilities. And the threat
that it is designed against, we know that none of those
individuals that are developing those threats, they are not
abandoning missile systems. They are not abandoning seeking
missile technology or missile capability. If we abandoned a
capability or an element of our overall system that is
integrated, we will open ourselves up to a vulnerability.
But what I am concerned about, and what I would like you
each to speak about, if we were to, based on lack of testing,
lack of completion of testing, to stop or discontinue the
advancement in any one of these areas or systems, I fear that
we might lose some capability, because we have three different
components basically. You have the development and innovation
phase; you have the testing phase; you have procurement phase.
And if you are to stop along the way, you are going to lose
institutional intellect. You are going to lose some industry
capability. Could you speak to a moment of concerns that you
might have of ceasing to progress in any one of these
integrated systems that we are looking at to protect us, and
what might happen if we later go back and try to reengage, what
gap would occur?
Dr. McQueary. Could I defer to General O'Reilly----
Mr. Turner. Absolutely.
Dr. McQueary [continuing]. First, since he has a broader
view of the whole system, because he lives it every day.
General O'Reilly. Sir, from an acquisition point of view,
once we decide to stop, if we decided to stop developing one of
these areas, you are exactly right, sir. The first area we
would be very careful to look at was the industrial base and
the intellect that you were referring to.
The missile defense area is a very unique developmental
skill in the sciences, in the material sciences, in the
production and so forth. Our country has been successful. But I
would say that we are one of the few countries with the type of
resources that could do what we have already accomplished. And
to ensure that we maintain and protect that competency in
developing missile defense interceptors, where you are not just
worried about launching the missile, but you are more worried
about what happens to that missile at the very end of its
flight, is very difficult.
So that is an area, and that is one of my greatest
responsibilities, is to ensure that we continue to develop that
competency in the United States in those areas, both in
industry and in the government team. And that is why I spend so
much time in universities and engineering schools in order to
continue to grow that competency.
Second is the supply chain. A lot of small companies out
there provide very unique items that apply just to missile
defense interceptors and missile defense systems. And we have
to be very careful about their ability to endure a transition
from supporting missile defense applications to having it so
that it could apply to other commercial ventures. And a lot of
that is a very difficult transition for them, because of the
nature of their work.
If we did stop one of these production lines,
requalification is very expensive. Typically, it runs on the
order of a line, such as GMD, would be over $400 million, an
estimate if a line stopped for over a year before you had to go
requalify and find new vendors. That is at the second.
And unfortunately, this business--and I guess it is a
strength of the United States that most of these systems
involve almost every aerospace company in the United States,
providing some sort of expertise or capability. So it is a far-
reaching impact that has to be carefully weighed.
One benefit of continuing testing is to produce the
interceptors themselves, which are the most difficult of these
items--producing interceptors, so that we can continue to make
decisions and keep a warm production line until we make a final
decision that we have enough capability, or we have a
capability by some other means.
Mr. Turner. Thank you.
And on that, Dr. McQueary, in your opinion, two-stage
interceptors that are proposed. It is not as if we are
completely designing a new system; it is a modification of a
system. And so my guess would be, since it is a modification of
a system, you are testing that modification and not having to
retest everything all over again. Later this year, if the two-
stage flight test that is planned, if it is successful, would
you recommend that we proceed with long-lead procurement?
Dr. McQueary. We have previously said that, with a
successful test, that we could support the idea of long-lead
procurement for items, yes. If that is what the Congress
decides upon.
Mr. Turner. And that is because it is--explain to me why
that would be the case.
Dr. McQueary. Because there are great similarities. And we
could show you that in detail, not easily here, but show a
great similarity between the two-stage and three-stage
interceptor. But nevertheless, there are changes. And
therefore, it is important to verify that those changes did not
introduce something anomalous in the behavior.
In fact, we have gone on record before saying we thought we
needed three tests, a total of three tests, in order to verify
that the change from three-stage to two-stage was a
satisfactory change. However, we have also said that we could,
if someone chose to fund the operation, we would be all right.
We would be all right in supporting the idea of going ahead
with long-lead items, because the long-lead items, most of
them, are usable in the three-stage vehicle in any event.
Mr. Turner. Excellent.
And I have just one more question, Madam Chair. Thank you
for your tolerance of time.
Another thing that I am concerned of, if we abandon the
advancement in any area or the pursuit of any area, is that
what it says to our adversaries or those that are developing
missiles.
Gentlemen, could you comment on, do you believe our missile
defense system has a deterrent effect, because if it does have
a deterrent effect, then abandoning any portion of it, we would
lose that deterrent effect. People would see a vulnerability
that we have, or an area in which we are conceding, but that we
are not going to be seeking a defensive posture. Do you guys
have thoughts as to if you believe that the pursuit of our
missile defense system and its deployment acts as a deterrent
internationally?
General O'Reilly. Well, if I may, sir, yes, I do from two
regards. One is when you are looking at the inventories and the
numbers you were talking about for ICBM defensive systems, you
have to look at how many ICBMs could be launched at any one
time. And you have to assume that the United States would
respond some way if, in fact, ICBMs were launched against it,
and the missile defense system intercepted and took out those
ICBMs.
So you have to look at what the inventory around the world
of ICBM launch points are, and there is only a few of them. But
there are others being built today. And so there is that
operational judgment on how much do we need, not a material
developing judgment.
However, I would say to the direct point on your question
is that I believe it is the most compelling way to devalue
these missiles is to show that they are ineffective, because we
keep intercepting them in different ways. And that is a great
strength of a robust test program, is to keep intercepting in
all the different fashions in which I believe our adversaries
are looking at ways to defeat it. And testing against
countermeasures and so forth, again, strengthens the
deterrence. And it is welcome in our approach to testing.
Mr. Turner. Excellent.
Madam Chair, thank you.
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you, Mr. Turner.
Mr. Andrews of New Jersey.
Mr. Andrews. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Ms. Tauscher. For five minutes.
Mr. Andrews. Thank you, gentlemen, for your testimony and
for your service to our country. I think it is very important
that the discussion not bring false choices. And the choice is
not deployment or abandonment. The choice is strategic,
intelligence, effective deployment versus other options. I just
want to ask anyone on the panel, has anyone here asked you to
plan for the abandonment of the system?
General O'Reilly. Well, as a material developer, I can tell
you, no.
Dr. McQueary. And as head of DOT&E, that isn't the way we
operate. We are charged with testing the systems that the----
Mr. Andrews. Right.
Dr. McQueary [continuing]. Government decides to----
Mr. Andrews. So the abandonment is sort of a metaphysical
discussion. I would like to switch to one I think is a little
more focused.
In January of 2002, Secretary Rumsfeld created a new world
in testing. And that world exempted the BMD products prior to
Milestone C. And in the context of that world, it is
interesting to see the result that occurs in your 2008 report,
which we mandated, between the Aegis system and the GMD.
That language that you used on the Aegis system, it was
declared ``operationally effective and suitable.'' Got very
good grades. The GMD, on the other hand, the quote is, ``GMD
flight testing to date will not support a high level of
confidence.'' And I understand, Doctor, what you mean by
confidence; not subjective term, but will not support a high
level of confidence in its limited capabilities. It is apparent
first one, on Aegis, sounds like an A. And the second one, to
me, sounds like a C-minus, D-plus.
Here is a hypothesis, Dr. McQueary, I would like you to
consider. The main difference in the pre-Milestone C testing
and activities between Aegis and GMD was that the testing that
was done for Aegis looks an awful lot like the traditional
testing that would have happened anyway without the exemption,
the legacy testing, legacy documents; whereas the testing of
the GMD looks very different. It looks like something that did
not go through the same degree of rigor and scrutiny. Would you
agree or disagree with that hypothesis?
Dr. McQueary. I don't think I am qualified to be able to
comment upon what you have just said, because I have not looked
at that program from that standpoint. The GMD is clearly at an
earlier stage of development than what the Aegis is.
Mr. Andrews. But it is correct, isn't it, that the testing
protocol, the date on the GMD, has not followed the orthodox
traditional path that other systems have followed. Isn't that
true?
Dr. McQueary. That is----
Mr. Andrews. It is very different from the Aegis testing.
Dr. McQueary. The entire program was put together that way.
That is correct.
Mr. Andrews. Would you characterize the testing as less
robust than the Aegis testing?
Dr. McQueary. I wouldn't characterize it as less robust. I
would characterize it as being in a much earlier stage of
development than the Aegis. And I think one of the things that
we bear responsibility to do is to assure that the GMD is
tested to a sufficient.
Mr. Andrews. But General, there is more than just a time
differential. Isn't there? Isn't there a qualitative
differential in the nature of the tests that have been done on
Aegis versus the GMD? Don't the Aegis tests look an awful lot
like more of the pre-Rumsfeld rule?
General O'Reilly. One of the purposes, sir, of the test
review that I have conducted since I came on board was in fact
to lay out all the data that is required to be collected. My
predecessors have shown the planning for the next two years,
two-year increments.
Mr. Andrews. Yes.
General O'Reilly. And it is more traditional, because what
we are approaching now is to lay out the entire test program,
so you can identify what is going to be tested and when, rather
than having to assume that something is going to be tested.
Mr. Andrews. And that looks an awful lot like, doesn't it,
the DOT&E process that would have been followed? Doesn't it
sort of echo that?
General O'Reilly. As far as from a planning point of view,
yes, sir.
Mr. Andrews. Yes.
General O'Reilly. Because in the DOT&E----
Mr. Andrews. Kind of wish we had those seven years back in
the billions and billions of dollars we spent since then? You
don't have to answer that question. I do.
On your testimony, you list a whole laundry list of things
that are going to have to be done for the GMD, both in the
Critical Engagement Conditions (CEC) and Empirical Measurement
Events (EME) categories. If I read correctly, there are nine
Critical Engagement Conditions and six Empirical Measurement
Events that have to take place.
And you list a whole laundry list of key factors that have
to be looked at: solar and lunar backgrounds, low intercept
altitudes, timing between salvo launches, long times of flight,
high closing velocities for ICBM-class targets, correcting for
varying booster burnout velocities, and responding to
countermeasures. That is a pretty significant list.
How long would it take to do all those things to your--
degree of confidence that we need? How long would it take?
Ms. Tauscher. Gentleman's time has expired.
But General O'Reilly, you can finish that answer.
General O'Reilly. Sir, honestly, sir, that is why I am
working in the--I am. Right now, we have identified what we
need. And what you have asked is exactly what we are doing over
the next couple months with these two agencies, and us----
Mr. Andrews. With that, thank you. Just add one thing,
Madam Chair. That is an answer I think the committee would
really like to hear before this year's bill is written, because
when we make funding priority decisions, I think it makes a big
difference as to what we do.
General O'Reilly. And, sir, our plan is to complete this
plan by May.
Mr. Andrews. Thank you very much.
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you, Mr. Andrews.
Mr. Franks of Arizona for five minutes.
Mr. Franks. Well thank you, Madam Chair.
Madam Chair, our ranking member here asked questions that
reached the goal that my own question had. And I thought he did
an excellent job. So at the risk of sounding a little redundant
here, let me just try to put some context by focusing again on
the threat.
And again, at the risk of being redundant, on July 4 of
2006, North Korea tested an ICBM and our GMD system was put on
alert. And now, of course, there have been reports that North
Korea may be testing an advanced Taepodong-2.
And considering General Cartwright, Commander of Strategic
Command, he said that the July 4, 2006 North Korean missile
launch has spurred a limited operational activation of the
Ballistic Missile Defense System. ``We learned that the
Ballistic Missile Defense System, procedures, and personnel
performed well, and demonstrated a credible operational missile
defense capability for homeland defense.''
And I think that is a pretty profound statement on the part
of General Cartwright. And so my first question, General
O'Reilly, is do you share General Cartwright's level of
confidence? Are you confident that this capability that we have
today, that we have today, can provide a defense to the
American people from the current North Korean threat?
General O'Reilly. Yes, sir, based on the scenarios that we
have tested three times, although it is limited and it is in
the beginning, those scenarios overlay a launch from North
Korea and a response out of Alaska. And so we have tested three
times that scenario first for obvious reasons. And that is the
source of my confidence.
Second of all, our firing doctrine is that we have a
significant number of missiles. So we can put a significant
number of missiles in the air at once. And that each time
significantly increases the overall probability that you are
going to be successful.
Mr. Franks. So let me ask the blooming obvious question
here. Forgive me. Do we have a system that is more mature than
GMD to defend against the current ICBM threat? And what are the
implications of delaying GMD production and fielding?
General O'Reilly. Well, sir, we do have a more mature
system now than we did then, particularly in our redundancy.
And we have multiple redundant capabilities throughout the
system now. And we have more interceptors. And we have learned
in flight.
Mr. Franks. Beyond GMD, General. I mean, do we have
something beyond GMD that is a more mature system to defend us
against ICBM threats currently?
General O'Reilly. No, sir. That is the only system that has
been tested against threats of 4,000 kilometers or greater.
Mr. Franks. Well, thank you.
Now, you know, I think it is clear that even if our systems
haven't given us 100 percent assurance through testing, and of
course I believe in testing as much as any of you do. And I
know that you would like to have more capability to do
additional testing. But it is the only system that we have for
this particular ICBM threat at the moment.
And to cut or delay funding and fielding, in my judgment,
Madam Chair, would send a tremendously dangerous message to the
North Koreans, not just in terms of the actual ICBM threat to
us, but I think it encourages them and other nations across the
world, Iran and others, to develop nuclear programs that
potentially could be passed, the technology could be passed
along to terrorists. And I think the coincidence of jihadist
terrorism and nuclear proliferation represents one of the
greatest dangers facing us as a free people today.
And so, I am going to run out of time it looks like here.
But I will try one more here with Mr. McQueary. As a current
test evaluator, would you say that, just because the strategic
BMD received a less-than-perfect test score, that this
necessarily means that it does not provide the warfighter with
an operationally effective capability?
Dr. McQueary. It does not provide the warfighter with an
operationally effective----
Mr. Franks. So let me ask----
Dr. McQueary [continuing]. Capability that I can say with
high confidence. I think it is important. Our job is testing
and to deal with the facts at hand. And there has simply not
been enough testing done in order to be able to state----
Mr. Franks. But the less-than-perfect score does not
necessarily mean that it does not provide the warfighter with
an operationally effective capability.
Dr. McQueary. The statement is not intended to imply that
at all.
Mr. Franks. Right.
Well, Madam Chair, I just think it is important that, you
know, I don't know of any system that we have that is proven
100 percent effective. I am not even sure that we could say
that about the baseball bat. But it is still pretty effective
at close range. And so I just hope that we don't, in the face
of not being able to test all that we could and all that you
gentlemen would like to test, and certainly I think we have a
responsibility to facilitate that, to do things that would
endanger our national security.
And so with that, Madam Chair, I don't know why that yellow
light has been on so long. But I will yield back. Thank you.
Oh, the light is stuck. I should have taken advantage of
that.
Ms. Tauscher. This is not a baseball bat, but it is a
gavel.
Mr. Heinrich.
Mr. Franks. Has it been tested?
Ms. Tauscher. Mr. Heinrich of New Mexico.
Mr. Heinrich. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I have a couple of questions for Lieutenant General
O'Reilly. And one is more general and one is more specific. But
it goes back to some of the same issues that Mr. Franks has
raised. And I will start with the more general one. And I would
just ask, do we have any hard evidence to show that our missile
defenses have actually deterred North Korea or Iran from
deploying this?
General O'Reilly. Sir, I am not in a position to answer
that. I think that might be more of an intel question.
Mr. Heinrich. Okay.
General O'Reilly. But I don't know, sir.
Mr. Heinrich. Well, on a more specific return to the issue
of the GMD system, if I understand correctly, Taepodong-2 is a
liquid-fuel system, is that correct?
General O'Reilly. Yes, sir.
Mr. Heinrich. And most of our tests are against solid-fuel
targets? Is there a qualitative difference in, you know,
testing against a solid-fuel target versus a liquid-fuel
target? And is that something that is relevant to future
testing? Do we need to be testing something that is more
analogous to, you know, basically to the Taepodong-2?
General O'Reilly. Well, sir, we test both threat
categories. As I said earlier in my discussion, we actually
test frequently actual threat missiles that are the liquids.
Most of our liquids are actual missiles which we have obtained.
And we have tested them off the coast and asymmetric. I mean,
we really want to ensure we have the confidence that Dr.
McQueary says.
Against our longer-range threats, we have the challenge
that these targets are almost ICBMs themselves. And so we rely
on our fleet of ICBMs in a lot of cases, which are mainly
solids.
Mr. Heinrich. Right.
General O'Reilly. But when you qualitatively compare
between the two, the solid actually presents much more
difficulty in intercepting, because as it burns, it actually
produces chunks, if you will, of solid material that is
burning. And so it clutters the scene.
Mr. Heinrich. Which could be mistaken for--okay.
General O'Reilly. Yes, sir. And when a kill vehicle looks
at a liquid, it sees primarily the objects or the debris and
the hard objects, especially if you are looking with an
infrared camera, which most of our systems have.
But when you are looking at a solid system, you are seeing
all this other. So it actually makes it more complex, harder,
at times more difficult for an intercept to occur.
Mr. Heinrich. I yield back.
Ms. Tauscher. Gentleman yields back his time.
Mr. Lamborn of Colorado.
Mr. Lamborn. Thank you.
Dr. McQueary, of Ground-based, Midcourse Defense, the
analysis indicates the U.S. is more capable of defending itself
against a single long-range--even though we haven't reached the
level of high----
Dr. McQueary. It is more capable, but I can't let you walk
me into some kind of numerical amount, because we had no
capability before. We now have capability. And therefore, by--
and we demonstrated it.
Ms. Tauscher. Majority will stipulate that we are more
capable than we were before we had nothing.
Dr. McQueary. Seems like a logical way----
Ms. Tauscher. I think so too.
Mr. Lamborn. Can you put high confidence into a percentage
count? Are you able to----
Dr. McQueary. Well, we typically speak----
Mr. Lamborn [continuing]. Is not a subjective term.
Dr. McQueary. It is not a subjective term. But typically
when we talk about performance of systems, we will be in the
range of having reliabilities that might be in the range of 80
percent to 90 percent reliability for missile systems, if you
look at that.
And then we talk about having a confidence generally in the
70 percent to 90 percent range as being in the high realm. And
the higher, the more, the higher the number when you go through
and examine the test data and look at various test scenarios
using modeling and simulation again. The higher the number, the
more confidence you have in how the system will work. It is
pretty straightforward.
Mr. Lamborn. Okay, so if you have a missile interceptor
that is not the high-confidence performance level, operational
level. But let us say it is 70 percent. But you fire that at an
incoming threat, and it misses. And you fire another one. And
that also has a 70 percent chance. When you put those two
together, aren't you left with 91 percent?
Dr. McQueary. That, I wouldn't attempt to do the arithmetic
in my head. But that doesn't sound too far off. Yes, the----
Mr. Lamborn. Or a third one would then decrease the----
Dr. McQueary. In fact, that is why the doctrine calls for
firing multiple missiles to accomplish just what you are
talking. Yes.
Mr. Lamborn. Okay, thank you.
Dr. McQueary. But it can get to be an expensive proposition
if the missiles are very expensive. That is----
Mr. Lamborn. That is right. Of course, the alternative is
expensive also.
Dr. McQueary. This is true.
Mr. Lamborn. And also, I would like to shift gears to ask
this: where do we stand with regard to the validation,
verification--excuse me, I am going to shift to Lieutenant
General O'Reilly at this point--where do we stand with regard
to the validation, verification, and accreditation of the BMDS
element level model? And when do we hope to be in a position to
validate, verify, and accredit the element level models?
General O'Reilly. Do you want to start?
General Nadeau. Okay. I would start by telling you that the
Operational Test Agency lead and other services are huge fans
of this three-phase test review that the Missile Defense Agency
is undergoing now which, when completed, will allow us to
answer that question very, very specifically, as we were
discussing, to break out of the two-year window into the entire
program.
And with the data and inputs and work that we all
collectively put into the Phase 1 piece of identifying the
number of ground and flight tests or flight tests necessary to
get to the point where you have the ability to validate and
verify (V&V) the models and then accredit them, and then start
using those models for the greater good, and then also adding
flight tests that will be required to do things you can't pick
up in the models.
It will end up being a very good process. It has been a
very good process to this date. And I applaud, in spades, the
effort to get down this road, because from the test agency's
perspective, this is exactly the right thing to do.
Mr. Lamborn. Anything to add to that?
General O'Reilly. No, sir.
Well, one result that we actually found as we went through
Phase 1 is there are other areas in our infrastructure and our
modeling that need improvement and need investment. It is not
just the testing. It is also the modeling of our threats from
areas such as NASIC and others. We need investment in that
area, so we can have the digital models of the threats that are
more precise, and the hardware in the loop and the other
infrastructures.
So we have learned a lot from this process, I would say,
and not just the accreditation of the models, but the entire
infrastructure to give us the confidence that we do have the
results that the warfighters and the combatant commanders can
use to make a judgment on the capabilities and limitations of
the system.
And Dr. McQueary, you may want to address that.
Dr. McQueary. I am with you.
Mr. Lamborn. I thank you all for your answers.
Ms. Tauscher. Gentleman's time has expired.
The gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Spratt, for five
minutes.
Mr. Spratt. Thank you very much, indeed.
And General O'Reilly, we are glad to see you in the
position you are in--sitting at the table, we are grateful to
have your service in this connection.
When Mr. Reagan, in 1983, announced the Strategic Defense
Initiative, he said its object was to ``render nuclear weapons
impotent and obsolete.'' I think we would have to agree that we
are a long way from that goal, are we not?
Let the record show everyone nodded his compliance.
[Laughter.]
General O'Reilly. Yes, sir.
Mr. Spratt. I am not trying to diminish what you have done.
I am simply trying to emphasize the great difficulty of
achieving the goal that the President set down when he launched
this.
General O'Reilly, you said that we need this testing,
because among other things, you did not want to place complete
reliance, confidence, in simulators, which have inherent
limitations. What are the doubts or concerns you are trying to
dispel as you undertake this testing regimen?
General O'Reilly. Well, sir, first of all, the simulations
do have limitations in the fact that most of our flight-test
failures that have occurred in this agency were due to quality
control. And quality control is not revealed through
simulations. You need to be doing actual testing in order to
get that confidence and quality control testing on the ground.
So that is one thing we are addressing is a comprehensive set
of testing--not just flight testing, but the ground testing.
And second of all, sir, it is associated with your opening
comment, we are often referred to as a shield. We are not
developing a shield. We are developing more of a multi-layered
net, I think is a much better analogy. It puts a lot of
uncertainty into the adversary. Is he going to be successful
with attacking? But the best we can do is get the probability
of engagements very high. But it is not an absolute shield.
And so we need to be addressing, in our testing program,
multiple systems working together to, in fact, show that
something ``doesn't fall between the seams,'' between GMD or
Aegis, or Aegis or THAAD, or THAAD or Patriot. And so that is
another major area we must address is, how do they work
together? And it requires a combination, because of the
expense, of models and simulation. But those actual flight
tests are very critical.
Mr. Spratt. At the same time that Mr. Reagan made his
speech, Paul Nitze, I believe, said that--and he is quoted in
Mr. Coyle's testimony--that laid down three ground rules for
judging success, and the last of which was that missile defense
should be cost-effective at the margin, so that the cost of
deploying one additional defensive system would be less than
the cost of an offensive system that might overcome it.
Do you think you have achieved that criterion, so that the
cost of defense is less than the cost of offense?
General O'Reilly. Sir----
Mr. Spratt. Yes, sir.
General O'Reilly. I will address that the cost of our
interceptors are much more expensive than the cost of the
threat missiles which we see. In fact, we are often surprised
at how those missiles are built, and what it takes in order to
produce a missile that could threaten, not only your contiguous
neighbor, but threaten a region. They are showing we have 1,000
more missiles in the 19 countries other than the United States,
Russia, and China than we had just 5 years ago.
So they are much more inexpensive than our interceptors.
But taking into account the area which you are trying to
protect and the cities you are trying to protect from it, I
believe that might change the calculus some.
Mr. Spratt. Mr. Coyle, noting the flight test, says that
MDA, over the past five years, has launched just two successful
GMD flight-intercept tests. MDA still must carry out
successfully about 20 more, perhaps 25, flight-intercept tests
of different types before the system can fully demonstrate
effectiveness in realistic operational tests. Would you agree
with that statement? Either one? Anyone.
Dr. McQueary. I don't know off the top of my head whether
it is 25, or whether it is 30, or whether it is 15.
Mr. Spratt. It is in that range.
Dr. McQueary. I think the key element is working with
General O'Reilly on the path he is on, on this three-phase
program in order to ascertain what tests have to be conducted.
And from that, we can count, at that point, and then have data
to look at. But I don't know how to answer the question then,
as you have posed it.
Mr. Spratt. But it is in the range of 20 to 25 additional
tests?
Dr. McQueary. Well, if you want it in a simple mathematical
sense, if you wanted to have a 90 percent probability of
something working and have a 90 percent confidence that it
would be what you want, we would have to run 28 successive
tests in order to demonstrate--28 successive tests that are
identical in nature--in order to prove that confidence level.
So that may be the origin of the comment.
But I believe Mr. Coyle is going to be on later. So he will
be able to answer the question himself.
Ms. Tauscher. The gentleman's time has expired.
Gentlewoman from California, Ms. Sanchez, for five minutes.
Ms. Sanchez. Thank you, Madam Chair. It is a pleasure to be
back on the subcommittee after taking a couple years off.
Obviously I came back because I think this is an incredibly
important issue for our Nation. There are lots of threats out
there. As you know, I chair on Homeland Security and in
particular the subcommittee that handles the global
counterterrorism for our Nation.
So I just want to put to the record that, you know, it is
always an issue about scarce resources. We are in a time,
especially today, of scarce resources. There are a lot of
demands here in Washington of what we are going to do with
money that, quite frankly, most of us know we don't even have.
And so, you know, I just want to put for the record that I
never have believed that this was an issue of wanting to stop
or not having the capability that many of us think at some
point we do need. But it is about how do we get there? And how
do we most effectively get there?
So I am very, actually, very proud of the gentlewoman from
California, my friend, who has now chaired this for a couple of
years. And I think you have been doing a great job to talk
about how we reassess what we have out there, because we know
that we put billions into this long-range missile defense
system. And the confidence, I think, is really not there that
it will stop something from coming in to our shores or other
places that we want to protect.
My question today is to General Nadeau. You expressed our
limited capability against a launch from Northeast Asia. It
seems to me, even in recent days when we have taken a look at
what North Korea may or may not be doing, but most likely may,
in continuing to expand its missile capability, how does the
Department of Defense address our limited capability at this
point, when we are looking at what North Korea may be doing,
for example?
General Nadeau. Yes, ma'am. Thank you for asking that
question. The limited nature, as we have described that
capability, is confined only to the fact that the flight tests
that have been run have not been over an expanded series of
scenarios. So against a narrow set, you end up with the
assessment of limited capability.
And so through, whether it is continued flight testing or
use of modeling and simulation, when you can expand the
envelope, and you see more, limited turns into a different
assessment of capability. So again, limited nature, in its most
simplistic form, is only because we have looked at it only in a
very finite window so far.
Ms. Sanchez. So if I am getting this correct--I mean, I
used to work for Booz Allen & Hamilton. And we used to
calibrate, you know, we used to put together our algorithms and
figure out what we thought would happen. And then we would
calibrate it with some real tests.
Sometimes we couldn't calibrate everything out. Maybe it is
sort of like trying to land a person on the moon. You do the
algorithm. But until you really land them, you really don't
know whether it is all going to work out. But you try to do or
simulate as much as you can those critical pieces, especially
keeping your people alive, or what have you.
So what I am understanding from you is, we can't account,
in a real test manner, for every single possibility to give us
100 percent confidence that we are going to have--that we are
going to test everything that may come at us. But we do that
through calculation, through algorithm, through modeling. And
then where we can in the specific areas, we do these other
tasks to get a better calibration of whether our system will
work, or how to tweak the system so it works for us getting
most of what is coming at us, or what we believe will come at
us. Is that correct?
General Nadeau. Yes, ma'am. I agree with that and would add
a couple of points. You get through modeling and simulation the
ability to more quickly go into different test scenarios and
most certainly more economically, because of the cost involved.
And if there is a belief, in discussion with the Missile
Defense Agency or DOT&E, that we need to take a look at a test
scenario that we do not have confidence in the model's ability
to do that assessment, then the dialogue turns to an actual
flight.
Ms. Sanchez. So it is not that we have stopped funding this
particular area that we are interested and believe, because a
lot of us, I think, I believe, are interested in this. It is
that some--I don't necessarily put myself in that category, but
many have said that the systems that we have are what we built,
what we actually have on hand, may be more of a facade, that it
doesn't have that confidence to take out whatever may come at
us. We don't know yet what they really have and how it will
come at us.
But I think most of us are just interested, or at least
this side, under this chairwoman that I have seen, are
interested in continuing to test and continuing to figure out
how we make this system really work for what may come at us.
Is that sort of putting words in your mouth, Chairwoman?
Ms. Tauscher. I think those are words that came out of my
mouth.
Ms. Sanchez. So, in your opinion, how concerned should we
be at what North Korea is doing, given what we currently have,
given that we are not continuing to build the same system all
over the place, that we think isn't handling the job
necessarily, but rather wanting to test and improve and really
build something, or add on to what we already have, something
that would really stop what may be happening.
Ms. Tauscher. The gentlewoman's time has expired. But you
can answer the question.
General Nadeau. From the test community's perspective, one
of the variables to consider is not concern over the
performance of a potential adversary, if I can state it that
way. And so where I turn our attention from the test
perspective is to provide as much information to General
O'Reilly and his team to be helpful to them to advance the
performance confidence in the system.
One of the luxuries of a test operation like mine is I am
not pressured by cost, performance and schedule; meaning that
in all of the right parameters, because I can look back and
deal only with the facts and not get concerned about the
shortness of schedule or perhaps the absence of other
resources.
So our function is to be that independent voice to General
O'Reilly to help him and his agency make the right decisions
and help alleviate, perhaps, either some of those concerns, or
the terminology from our world is risk, ma'am.
Ms. Sanchez. Thank you.
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you very much, gentlemen. We would like
to get on to our second panel. We very much appreciate your
appearance before the subcommittee. We know that we will see
you again.
General O'Reilly, we are looking very much into getting you
back after the results of your test review is ready for us to
have some testimony from you. So we look forward to doing that
later in the spring.
If we could take a 60-second recess and change out our
panels, I would appreciate it. Thank you.
We are honored to have our second panel with us today. We
have experts and academics. And I think we are going to begin
with Mr. Coyle. Just for the record, I want to state that Mr.
Coyle and his wife are former constituents of mine and old
friends.
But I am glad to have you back.
And all of your testimony has been submitted for the
record. If you could summarize in five minutes or less, I would
appreciate that. We are expecting some votes again. So we will
have to recess when those votes are called. But we would like
to get through as much as we can on the panel as possible.
So Mr. Coyle, welcome back again to the committee. Thank
you for your service. And the floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF HON. DR. PHILIP E. COYLE, III, FORMER DIRECTOR,
OPERATIONAL TEST AND EVALUATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Dr. Coyle. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. I
appreciate the opportunity to be with you before you today to
support your examination of the future of missile defense
testing. Ranking Member Turner, I appreciate being here with
you also.
In my view, there is a troublesome lack of clarity in
public discourse regarding both the rationale for, and the
technical progress toward, an effective U.S. missile defense
network. Quite simply, the public statements made by Pentagon
officials and contractors have often been at variance with the
facts at hand. I am referring to the past, not under General
O'Reilly.
It is difficult to separate a programmatic spin from
genuine progress. In particular in the past, the program has
made claims that have not been demonstrated through realistic
testing.
In my prepared testimony I outline the steps that I believe
the Missile Defense Agency must take. These include tests to
establish operational criteria, such as how good is the system.
You had questions earlier about that, and, as you saw, they
were not able to be answered. Tests to demonstrate that the
system can withstand attacks involving multiple missiles, not
just one or two; testing to demonstrate that the system can be
operationally effective in the presence of realistic decoys and
countermeasures; and four, test to eliminate the gaps from past
flight intercept tests, including years of kicking the can down
the road on basic operational questions, like can the system
work at night, in bad weather or in likely battlefield
conditions?
In my prepared testimony, I make an analogy about the
different scientific and technical issues that a program can
face. And I make the analogy with an imaginary Pentagon program
to demonstrate human flight. And I am not trying to be funny
there. The Missile Defense Agency faces many very daunting
scientific and technical problems, and they have not been
addressing those questions. It appears that Lieutenant General
O'Reilly is beginning the process to do that.
Our military often observes that the enemy has a vote. In
missile defense, this means that if the enemy is bound and
determined to attack us, they will do whatever they can to
overwhelm and confound our missile defenses. This means that
the enemy may launch many missiles, not just one or two; may
make their warheads stealthy and hard to detect and track; and
may use decoys and other types of countermeasures to fool or
confuse our defenses.
They may attack us at night or in bad weather, or may use
electronic jamming or stealth. Recently the White House said
about National Missile Defense, the ground-based system as it
is called now, ``The Obama-Biden Administration will support
missile defense, but ensure that it is developed in a way that
is pragmatic and cost-effective and, most importantly, does not
divert resources from other national security priorities until
we are positive the technology will protect the American
public.''
How will the Administration and Congress be positive that
missile defense will protect the American public? It is going
to take testing far beyond what we have seen to date.
The easiest ways for an enemy to overwhelm our defenses are
to, number one, build more missiles, more offensive missiles,
to attack us; number two, use decoys and countermeasures to
fool the defenses; and three, attack us in ways that our
missile defenses are not designed to handle, such as with
cruise missiles, or through terrorism or insurgency.
The Missile Defense Agency does not have a charter to
counter terrorism. But it is responsible to address the ways
that an adversary might try to overcome or fool our missile
defenses. The testing program must put those issues front and
center. But that has not been happening.
My perspective on the threat may be different from yours.
In my view, Iran is not so suicidal as to attack Europe or the
United States with missiles. To me, it is not credible that
Iran would be so reckless as to attack Europe, or the United
States for that matter, with a single missile, and also by the
way, with no decoys or countermeasures to fool us, and then sit
back and wait for a massive retaliation. As we know, ballistic
missiles have return addresses.
I don't believe that the launch of a small satellite by
Iran earlier this month changes this situation.
But if you believe that Iran is bound and determined to
attack Europe or America, no matter what, then I think you also
have to assume that Iran would do whatever it takes to
overwhelm our missile defenses, including using decoys to fool
the defenses, launching stealthy warheads, and launching many
missiles, not just one or two.
The Missile Defense Agency admits it can't handle that
situation today. And accordingly, their testing program must
begin to address these challenges soon.
Ms. Tauscher. Mr. Coyle, can I ask you to sum up? We have
about 10 minutes before we have another series of votes. And I
would like to get the other two witnesses to give their
statements.
Dr. Coyle. Certainly, I can stop right there.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Coyle can be found in the
Appendix on page 82.]
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Francis.
STATEMENT OF PAUL L. FRANCIS, DIRECTOR, ACQUISITION AND
SOURCING MANAGEMENT, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Mr. Francis. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Turner and members of the subcommittee, I appreciate
your having me here to participate in the discussion of missile
defense testing.
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you.
Mr. Francis. I will attempt to answer the three questions
that I got in my invitation letter as well. The first was what
are conclusions from our annual report that will be issued next
month on missile defense. I would first like to recognize the
uniqueness of missile defense testing and the challenges it
faces in complexity, cost, safety, the fact that development
and operational testing has to be combined, and the fact that
modeling and simulation is really important for this program.
So it makes every test event really important.
Now, during fiscal year 2008, which we looked at in our
review, we found that the testing itself, while there were many
things done well, testing--particularly flight testing--was
less productive than planned. None of the missile defense
elements conducted all the testing they had planned. And only
one achieved all its key objectives. In a number of cases,
tests were either cancelled, deferred or achieved less than
planned. And this was particularly true for the GMD element.
Targets have been a persistent problem across all the
elements that are flight testing. There are a number of
consequences, in my opinion, associated with less productive
testing. One of those does relate to anchoring models and
simulations, which are absolutely key for this program. And
there was a question earlier about how many models there were.
There are 40 models; about six of them fully accredited,
nine have been partly accredited. That leaves 25 to be done
yet, before you can assess the full performance of the system.
And I don't believe that will be done until 2011. So quite a
bit of work to do there; quite a bit of understanding yet about
the fielded systems' performance against countermeasures.
Another consequence that we have observed is production
fielding is beginning to get ahead of testing, so that some
assets are being produced and fielded before they are tested.
And finally, declarations of capability--that is when you say
an asset is ready to be operational--some of those have been
postponed. And some declarations have been made on the basis of
less information than planned.
The second question you had asked me to address was our
views on the three-stage review that General O'Reilly is
conducting. We think that is something that is needed, and we
welcome it. And I think General O'Reilly's experience as the
THAAD program manager is especially relevant in this review,
because he has kind of been through this before.
We have only gotten initial briefings on it, but I like the
overall approach. I think identifying those critical variables
that are going to be in the models and simulations and cross-
walking those to testing, I think that is important and should
close some of the gaps that we see today between modeling,
simulation, and testing. I think the involvement of the test
community has been very important.
That third phase is going to be really critical. That is
where General O'Reilly will address resourcing, the flight test
program, and the ground test program with assets. And that gets
to the third question that you had asked me to address is what
actions do we think missile defense should take in this new
approach? And I think there are five.
One is continued involvement of the testers in the process.
The second is the test program that emerges has to be robust in
terms of targets, test assets, allowing time to analyze after a
test and do post-flight reconstruction. And I think that is
really important.
The third thing is the fiscal year 2009 test plan is very
ambitious now, because a lot of the fiscal year 2008 testing
has been pushed into it. So I think that has to be looked at to
see if it is still rational and achievable.
The fourth thing is synchronizing, or re-synchronizing, I
would say, production and fielding decisions with modeling and
testing information, so that the modeling and testing comes
before the production and fielding. And the last thing is I
think it will take about two years for the new test plans to be
fully implemented. So we are looking at 2010, 2011.
So the MDA will be in a transitional period. I think that
is going to be a time for careful management and some prudent
decisions about production and fielding while we are waiting
for a really sound test plan to emerge. So----
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you, Mr. Francis.
Mr. Francis. I am ready for any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Francis can be found in the
Appendix on page 113.]
Ms. Tauscher. I appreciate that very much.
Mr. Mitchell.
STATEMENT OF DONALD C. MITCHELL, CHIEF ENGINEER FOR BALLISTIC
MISSILE DEFENSE, AIR AND MISSILE DEFENSE SYSTEMS DEPARTMENT,
APPLIED PHYSICS LABORATORY, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
Mr. Mitchell. Thank you, Chairwoman Tauscher, Ranking
Member Turner, distinguished members of the subcommittee. Thank
you for the privilege of appearing before you today on the
topic of Ballistic Missile Defense.
I have served the Missile Defense Agency since 2005, first
as a member of the Mission Readiness Task Force, and now as
Director for Readiness Assessment. In those assignments, I
worked closely with the test and evaluation communities of GMD,
Aegis BMD, and THAAD as they prepared for firing exercises in
order to develop an independent assessment of their readiness
to conduct those missions. The written testimony that I
provided to the subcommittee is based upon that experience
these last four years.
The firing histories for those three elements indicate that
there is a military capability against simple separating
targets, and that upcoming flight tests will demonstrate a
capability against more challenging threats. Though important,
flight tests are not sufficient to accurately understand the
operational effectiveness and operational suitability of a
system.
A test and evaluation plan that integrates the results from
flight tests, ground tests, and high-fidelity models and
simulations is required to understand the effectiveness and
suitability of the BMDS. High-fidelity models and simulations
are used first to predict the outcome of a flight test under
various conditions, and second, to replicate the outcome of the
flight test using the conditions as experienced during the
mission.
This technique, called anchoring, is part of the
verification, validation, and accreditation (VV&A) for the
models and simulations that allows one to believe the
predictions produced by them. Models and simulations that are
VV&A-ed can be used to produce a believable, statistically
significant, cost-effective estimate of the effectiveness of
the system.
Ground tests can be used to demonstrate the operational
suitability by showing the deftness with which the elements of
the BMDS interact with one another. Thoughtful planning can
produce complementary results from flight tests and ground
tests. By emphasizing suitability in ground tests, the simplest
set of flight tests can be defined with which to anchor the
models and simulations. This approach provides flexibility in
making fielding decisions of the BMDS.
MDA has embarked on a three-phase effort to define a set of
flight tests that will anchor the high-fidelity model in use in
MDA, and ground tests that will demonstrate the suitability. An
oft-asked question is, how many flight tests are necessary to
demonstrate that a system is effective? That question is now
properly reframed as how many flight tests are necessary to
anchor high-fidelity models?
The answer to that question is being developed using the
critical engagement conditions and empirical measurement
events. From this review, MDA will know what portions of the
models can be anchored by measurements on the ground, and what
portions should be anchored in flight. I look forward to a
conclusion that presents the Director, Lieutenant General
O'Reilly, with an efficient plan that demonstrates
effectiveness and suitability of the BMDS.
I would like to make a brief comment on GMD, if I may. That
program has made significant strides in improving its test
discipline and has adopted a quality improvement program that
bear fruit in the future. I respectfully request that the
subcommittee continue to support GMD in these efforts.
I welcome the opportunity to speak with you today and will
be pleased to answer any questions that you have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Mitchell can be found in the
Appendix on page 128.]
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you, Mr. Mitchell.
We are about to be called for votes, but I am going to
actually yield my time to Mr. Larsen for five minutes.
Mr. Larsen. Thank you.
Perhaps Mr. Francis can answer a question that I wasn't
able to ask. Sorry I wasn't here for the whole panel. But it is
still relevant to the panelists here, because it is a question
that I will explore with Dr. McQueary as well.
But from the GAO's perspective, the idea that General
O'Reilly has to lay out a, call it a lifetime testing plan, or
just a longer-term testing plan for us, and then not conduct
full tests each time in order to save money on a test. That is
making a determination that, on any one test, you may not have
to start from the very beginning and then go all the way
through to the element that they want to test. That saves
money.
But in your view, will anything be lost doing it that way
as well? The benefit is perhaps saving money on a test. But is
there anything lost on the test from doing it that way?
Mr. Francis. It would depend on how the plan is laid out.
So for example, if there is a very rigorous, say, ground test
plan that is anchoring models and simulations, I think a--I
haven't seen the specifics of what General O'Reilly is
proposing--but I would say then a more limited flight test
might be okay, as long as it has that kind of a foundation.
I think where you run into trouble is where you have a very
success-oriented schedule set out that is predicated on
everything going just fine. At the same time, we are producing.
And when something happens and things don't go well, then we
end up loading up a test, for example.
So the current approach was what I would call a crawl-walk-
run approach.
Mr. Larsen. Right.
Mr. Francis. And we have got a little bit away from that.
So instead of each test, flight test for example, demonstrating
one new variable or one new capability, they are starting to
load up. So I think it is Flight Test 6 that is coming up. It
is going to have a new Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) in it.
It will be the first test against a complex threat scene. And
it is only going to be the second test of a new target.
So that is my caveat. As long as the plan is laid out to
anticipate some contingencies that it can react to, I think
that would work out. If it is success-oriented, then we might
end up loading up that flight test.
Mr. Larsen. Yes.
Mr. Mitchell, do you have a view on that?
Mr. Mitchell. I have a view that----
Mr. Larsen. On my question.
Mr. Mitchell. Yes, I have a view very similar to Mr.
Francis. Models and simulations represent three things: the
functional behavior of the system; the performance attributes
associated with the system; and the error sources within the
system. Many of those can be adequately understood on the
grounds of ground test. And it is the purpose of a flight test
to then fully anchor those things we really can't get at on the
ground.
With that approach to VV&A of the model, I don't think we
will lose anything in these flight tests, so long as they are
carefully planned, sequential in nature, and don't try and rush
to a complicated, complex test that we haven't walked up to, as
Mr. Francis suggested.
Mr. Larsen. Yes.
Mr. Coyle, do you have any thoughts on that? Do we lose
anything by testing just the element that we wanted to test as
opposed to starting from the beginning and testing through the
element that we have added?
Dr. Coyle. Well, I would recommend that there wouldn't ever
be any test that you hadn't attempted to model and simulate
beforehand. But there are some things that models will always
be mysterious about those things. And it is just going to take
a flight test.
For example, Dr. McQueary, in his report to Congress,
points out that the GMD system, the ground-based system, has
not demonstrated its performance throughout, and I quote, ``the
expected range of adverse natural environments.'' He is not
talking about what the enemy might do to fool you. He is
talking about, at night, when the sun is shining in your eyes,
things like that.
And so Dr. McQueary points out in his report to Congress
that there are some issues like this that just haven't been
addressed yet.
Mr. Larsen. Madam Chair, that has been the main question I
have been exploring. And so that is fine. So I yield back my
time.
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you, Mr. Larsen.
Gentlemen, can we ask for your forbearance for about a half
an hour. We have three votes, a 15, a 5, and a 15. But that
doesn't mean that we will be gone for that entire 15 minutes.
So if you don't mind, we will recess for about a half an hour.
We thank you very much. Be right back.
[Recess.]
Ms. Tauscher. Witness line warm, as they say? [Laughter.]
I think we want to just go and talk about the successes of
theater missile defense, for example. DOT&E's Fiscal Year 2008
Annual Report noted that theater missile defense systems, such
as Aegis BMD and THAAD, continue to make significant progress,
although the long-range GMD system continued to face
challenges. Are there lessons we have learned from the theater
missile defense testing that should be applied to the GMD
system, first?
And second, if so, what specific recommendations would you
make to the Department of Defense? Let me start with Mr. Coyle
and go right down the line. If you can keep your answers brief,
I think we are going to see Mr. Turner pretty soon.
Dr. Coyle. Thank you.
Yes, the services do have an approach toward testing, which
I think is very healthy. Publicly, in other forums, I have
given the Navy credit for the approach that they have taken
with the Aegis system. They have a tradition of doing quite
realistic tests at sea. And that tradition has carried over to
their missile defense work. Analogies like that could be made
with respect to the Army in both Patriot and THAAD.
However, I have to add, for all their good successes, I
continue to be concerned that Congress is not fully and
currently informed about the ways in which these tests are
scripted. And I think that is something that probably General
O'Reilly is going to try to change. And that will be good.
Ms. Tauscher. Mr. Francis.
Mr. Francis. Yes. I think some of the things--I agree
certainly with what Mr. Coyle said about the testing. I think
both in THAAD and Aegis, there is I think a wider range of
targets being presented. I think the operators know less in
advance about what is going to happen. And I think that they
are engaging in a broader flight regime, if you will, not as
narrow as GMD.
If you go back, though, both Aegis and THAAD are self-
contained. They own the missiles. They own the fire control.
They own the radar. So I think it is a little less complex. And
GMD didn't own that.
But having said that, I think if you turn the clock back,
it would be interesting to ask General O'Reilly, I think THAAD
was in this very situation in early development. And they were
trying to do a lot of testing and gang up on a single test. And
they had to stop and remap the test program. So I am hoping
that is what they are doing with GMD now.
Ms. Tauscher. It is not just a coincidence that it was
General O'Reilly that did that.
Mr. Francis. No. Yes.
Ms. Tauscher. Mr. Mitchell.
Mr. Mitchell. Yes, ma'am. The points are well-taken. But
there is something else about Aegis and THAAD that you need to
understand. It is the way they prepare for flight tests.
They are very disciplined. They have a primary objective.
They work hard to understand what the probability of success is
against that primary objective. And they work equally hard at
knowing what the risks are against attaining that probability
of success in the mission. That is why they have been
successful. And again, it is a wide variety of targets.
GMD has adopted that precise mentality. It has caused them
to postpone some missions: FTG-04 was canceled because of a
problem in the telemetry system. It was very likely we would
not get any telemetry data. And so we wouldn't be able to
reconstruct what happened. That was, in my mind, a correct
decision, given the cost of these exercises and represents
discipline that I am talking about.
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you.
I was just trying to keep the witnesses warm for you, Mr.
Turner. I am happy to yield to you.
Mr. Turner. That is very kind of you. Thank you.
Thank you, all, for participating first off and for
bringing your expertise.
Mr. Coyle, am I pronouncing that correctly?
Dr. Coyle. Yes, sir.
Mr. Turner. Coyle, okay, thank you.
One of the great aspects, I think, of any of these
hearings, when you bring diverse views together, how much you
can learn from the different perspectives and the advice that
they give. Mr. Coyle, I was really interested in your testimony
because, besides your admission that you cannot fly, there was
some revelation there.
And on page six, you say: ``In my view, Iran is not so
suicidal as to attack Europe or the United States with
missiles. To me, it is not credible that Iran would be so
reckless as to attack Europe or the United States with a single
missile, no decoys and the like. Similarly, North Korea isn't
so suicidal as to attack Japan or the United States.''
And this hearing is about testing. But I took from your
statement a belief that there is an exaggeration of the threat,
a lack of a view which I think is different, and I would like
you to expound upon, that Iran and North Korea really don't
pose the type of threat that everyone is saying that they do.
Dr. Coyle. Actually, my point is just the opposite, that if
you believe that Iran would be suicidal enough to attack Europe
or the U.S., then you have to also believe that they would do
whatever they would, they could, to overwhelm our defenses. And
that would mean firing more than one or two missiles. And as
General O'Reilly acknowledges in his testimony, that is not
something the Missile Defense Agency can handle.
For example, there is only supposed to be 10 interceptors
in Poland. And it was pointed out by the first panel that the
doctrine is to shoot as many as five missiles at each one. So
if Iran launches two missiles, those 10 are all gone. And if
Iran launches a third one, you have got no interceptors left.
So if you want to take the threat from Iran seriously, then I
think you have to look where they might go with it.
Mr. Turner. Okay. And I absolutely agree with you, with
your point of you must, in your evaluation, think about, you
know, that they would do whatever they could. Similarly, we
should do whatever we can. And in that, then, should I take
your comments to be an advocacy for more deployment of missile
defense; because if you think that what we have is going to be
insufficient for an ever-increasing threat, wouldn't the
logical conclusion of your testimony then be that we should
deploy more, not less?
Dr. Coyle. I support research and development (R&D) in
missile defense and have for my whole life, if for no other
reason than we should avoid technological surprise. What I
would not support is deploying a bunch of hardware that we
either know wouldn't work in the situations we would face, or
which have----
Mr. Turner. But we don't have that situation, right?
Because no one has ever testified that we have something that
we know does not work. No one has, I think, ever testified
before this committee that we have things that we know don't
work.
Dr. Coyle. Actually, the----
Mr. Turner. They might not work as well, or they might not
be perfect. But no one has said we have things that don't work.
Dr. Coyle. But what the Missile Defense Agency itself has
said is that they cannot handle attacks with multiple missiles.
That is an example of something they have said that they do not
know how to do right now. Hasn't been tested, and they don't
know how to do it. So if you believe that Iran would attack
Europe or the United States, I think you have to take that
seriously.
Mr. Turner. I appreciate that.
Mr. Francis, Mr. Mitchell, one of the things that I have
been very impressed with in all of the testimony, is the
secondary issue of you test, flight test, you get obviously a
specific response from that. But you also get an incredible
amount of data. And that data, in part, is used for simulation,
modeling, computer work on, not only just improving the system,
but on determining later how the system might perform or what
are the uses it could be.
I mean, one of the things that I think of when I hear them
talk about that, is the Aegis system. You know, we never tested
it to take out a satellite that was falling out of the sky. No
one would argue that we should have never pressed the button to
have it take a satellite out of the sky once the satellite is
falling from the sky, just because it had not been tested.
But we had computer modeling and simulation that aided us
in determining whether or not this was something that was
possible. And we had, obviously, a situation that we needed to
act. And then we did.
Could you speak a moment about the importance in testing of
the data that is generated in the computer simulation and
modeling, because I am very interested in your opinion and
thoughts on that process.
Mr. Francis. Yes, well, I will start off and then turn over
to Mr. Mitchell. But the data is very important, because after
you have a flight test, they do what is called a post-flight
test, a post-test reconstruction, where you actually try to
replicate what happened in the real test through the modeling.
And there is kind of a symbiotic relationship between the two.
If you can get your data from the flight test to make the
model better and to anchor it in reality, then when you are
presented with a new situation or you are about to do another
flight test, you can run the model and get some idea as how you
are likely to do in a real flight test. So it is very
important. And they build on each other.
So when we are looking at a performance assessment, which
is basically a way to look at how the missile defense system,
as it is in the field, will work today, that is an aggregation
of models. There is no one grand model that does that. So each
one of these models, Aegis and THAAD and so forth, would get
aggregated to give you some kind of prediction of the overall
system. So there is, like I say, a symbiotic relationship, very
important.
Mr. Mitchell. In addition to what Mr. Francis said, the
data has another very important issue. And that is the system
can behave in unexpected ways that didn't threaten the flight.
You may have had a success. But there is something peculiar,
that data, that leads you to an investigation about what did
this function do? Why did it do it? Why was the tracking
accuracy the way it was and would you expect it to be a little
bit better than that that occurred in flight?
That data is a rich field with which to really poke at, not
only your understanding of the system, but the way it is
physically implemented, to determine whether or not it was
intended to be that way. That is a second-level--a very
important use of that data.
Mr. Turner. Thank you very much.
Madam Chair.
Ms. Tauscher. I think the issue of validation of the models
and simulations is one of the first things that General
O'Reilly is moving vigorously to mitigate.
The analogy I think is like if you have a patient appear in
the emergency room. And you don't take down their temperature
and their vital signs, but you decide that they have a critical
issue where they may need surgery. Nobody is going to go into
surgery without figuring out whether the person, you know, has
a heartbeat that is going, and a temperature that is okay, and
whether they can manage the anesthesia or not.
And I think that what is clear to me is that the lack of
verification of these models and simulations, some number north
of 40, creates, for Dr. McQueary, this question of confidence.
And Mr. Francis, this is a specific area that you have
talked about in the GAO report. Could you just expand a little
bit on the novelty of the fact that this hasn't been done, the
fact that this is an underpinning of, not only ``fly before you
buy,'' but the kind of assurances and surety that systems are
meant to have?
Mr. Francis. Sure. I do review a number of different
programs, shipbuilding programs and Army programs. And we just
did some work looking at testing of body armor. And in a test
of a system like that, you can run repeated tests and get all
the data you need, whether or not you have a model. You fully
understand everything that vest can do.
I think what is unique here about the missile defense is
testing cannot achieve that. We can't know everything about the
system, because just the physical limitations of testing as it
relates to the BMDS system. So modeling in some cases is a
nice-to-have. But in missile defense, it is a must-have.
And so one of the things that missile defense has been
trying to do--and I think it is General Nadeau's
responsibility--is to do an annual performance assessment,
which is an attempt to use modeling and simulation to say,
``What do we know about the system that is in the field
today,'' because testing can't tell us enough. You have to have
your models accredited, part of which means being anchored in
ground and flight test to be able to say that.
And as I had said earlier, we are quite a ways from that.
We have 40 models right now that would have to be aggregated in
some form to say ``Do we understand how the system in the field
today works?'' Twenty-five have yet to be accredited.
So the significance of that is you can't say how the
fielded system is going to perform without the modeling and
simulation. So it is a must-have.
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you.
I am not sure who came in first, Mr. Franks or Mr. Lamborn.
Mr. Franks for five minutes.
Mr. Franks. Well, thank you, Madam Chair.
Madam Chair, I was just listening to the responses by Mr.
Coyle. I guess related to the European site with the 10
interceptors suggestion that, you know, as many as five of the
interceptors might be launched against one potential incoming
missile. Even if that scenario was true, I guess that there are
a couple of conclusions there.
First of all, that would mean perhaps at least two cities
would be saved. Secondarily, given Iran's present, at least
what we believe is their present amount of fissile material
that they have, there is a limit to the number of warheads that
they might have, which might give us a chance to respond with
greater numbers of interceptors, if that becomes clear.
I think that my greatest hope is that the presence of a
ground-based system in Poland and in the Czech Republic would,
as it has been said so many times today, to devalue the Iranian
nuclear program, to the hope that somehow many of the other
things that we are trying to do would dissuade the program
entirely and, again, try to keep that technology from the hands
of terrorists.
That is just a comment. But I wanted to ask you, Mr.
Mitchell, a question. You stated in your written testimony, and
I am going to quote. It says, ``I conclude from this evidence
that a fundamental useful defensive capability based on an
autonomous operation of Aegis BMD, THAAD and GMD elements is
available to our armed forces. But I cannot state that BMDS has
reached maturity.'' And I think that is a very erudite
statement.
And you raise an important point. Even though that BMDS
hasn't reached complete maturity, that it is still a useful
defensive capability. And you are certainly an expert in this
area. Can you comment on a few of the factors within the system
and the testing mechanisms, as they are now, that give you the
confidence to say that there is a useful defensive capability
here?
Mr. Mitchell. Well, I have to be careful about the use of
the word ``confidence,'' as Dr. McQueary schooled us earlier
today. So----
Ms. Tauscher. You can say it is subjective confidence.
Mr. Mitchell. I am going to try and use the word only when
I am talking about statistical significance. GMD, in its last
three firing missions, has essentially successfully detected a
re-entry vehicle (RV), targeted it, and the EKV has destroyed
that warhead. They were simple, separating targets, as General
O'Reilly said, much like the trajectories we might have to
engage from North Korea, using----
If you look at that, there have been three chances. It has
done it three times. There is something there that is useful.
Now, I also am aware of the models that they use to predict
their performance prior to these missions. And they are very
detailed. And playing data back through, they were able to
replicate what happened in flight.
So I am beginning to believe that, if we finish the work
started by General O'Reilly and use those models to arrive at a
true understanding of the probability of success, we will have
a credible defense. But that is yet to be proven. Now, that is
solely for simple separating targets, as you----
Mr. Franks. No, that is a great answer, Mr. Mitchell. And I
appreciate the analogy that you use of flipping the coin. You
described in your testimony where statistics describe
increasing confidence as a result of more flips of the coin or
a greater number of testing trials in the case of BMDS.
And while we absolutely need to conduct flight and ground
testing, you said in you testimony, ``the cost to conduct a
firing mission makes it prohibitively expensive to develop a
high degree of confidence for the performance of the system for
any one scenario, much less full battle space using only live-
fire events.'' In other words, it takes a lot to do all of
these things. It costs a lot.
Based on that, can you discuss the importance of high-
fidelity models and simulations in order to achieve the type of
statistical credibility and reliability in BMDS that you
describe in your analogy? And what is the confidence level in
high-fidelity models and simulations when testing BMDS? And I
want you to hold that thought, if you could.
There is one voice that I have heard in the crowd here. And
I think it is the most compelling voice that I have heard on
missile defense today. I think he is about seven-and-a-half
months old. And I appreciate him being here. And I want you to
know, my purpose for being on this panel is to make sure that
he walks in the sunlight of freedom like the rest of us do.
So please, I hope that he didn't distract you here.
Mr. Mitchell. Oh no, not at all. The key to using models
and simulations is that you have to be able to believe the
results that you get from a model. That belief is what we have
been calling VV&A, anchoring. We have used several terms,
several different things that go into building a belief in the
output.
If you can believe that output, you can conduct any number
of trials you want just using computer. You can do 250 and do
1,000 against a scenario and get a very narrow range in which
the real probability of success lies with a high degree of
statistical confidence. You can then repeat that for any other
scenario you wish to use. And by that technique, you can
develop a sense of what the operational effectiveness of the
system is.
Mr. Franks. Thank you, all, very much.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Tauscher. Isn't it true that the reason we can use
stockpile stewardship, which is simulation of testing using
high-speed computers and other means, putting the largest laser
in the world that is in my district in California, is because
we had 1,000 tests at the Nevada Test Range and other places?
Isn't it true that one of the reasons why there is a
question of anchoring and certifying the simulation and the
testing and the modeling of the long-range system is that there
hasn't been that number of tests that actually go back and say
what you are projecting in the modeling and simulation which,
by the way, are projections, or is not grounded in the reality
of enough tests? Is that true? Yes.
Mr. Mitchell. That is true. But I would like to expand upon
the observation, if I may.
Ms. Tauscher. Sure.
Mr. Mitchell. Tests come in a number of different types.
Much of the things that are represented in models can be
verified by conducting experiments underground. You can measure
what the drift rate in an inertial measurement unit (IMU) is
and have that replicated in a model as a statistical draw. You
can do a lot of that.
You will need flight tests for some things to do. The 1,000
tests, if I were to draw that analogy, would encompass all of
these things, including flight tests, and say yes, we have to
do that. But I don't want to leave the suggestion that we have
to conduct 1,000 flight tests or 100 flight tests.
Ms. Tauscher. Well, my point wasn't that we have to do
1,000 tests. But my point is that the reason why we have such
confidence in the science-based stockpile stewardship
management of the weapons, particularly the weapons now, is
that we tested 1,000 times. We have such a body of tests that
you are not stretching the algorithm to try to get yourself to
a place, because you have a significant body of live tests.
Mr. Mitchell. That is correct.
Ms. Tauscher. And I am not suggesting that the long-range
system has to go through 1,000 tests. But I think that what
General O'Reilly--the point that he is approaching, is that we
have not had enough live tests to be able to certify enough of
the models and simulations.
We have 25 out of the 40 that cannot be anchored. And that
there is no credibility, perhaps--maybe not the right word, but
a significant piece of it is credibility. There is no
credibility to the projections that these simulations and these
modelings have, because you cannot ground them. You cannot
anchor them in live tests.
Mr. Francis.
Mr. Francis. At this point, that is true. So you can't use
the models to predict the performance of the system. I think
one of the things that is different, and I will defer to my
colleagues here on the panel, is, in the case of the long-range
system, I don't think it is possible to physically test
everything about it.
Ms. Tauscher. That is right.
Mr. Francis. And that is where the models and simulations
are actually going to have to do things that we can't do
physically.
Ms. Tauscher. That is right.
Mr. Lamborn for five minutes.
Mr. Lamborn. Is that working?
Ms. Tauscher. I can hear you.
Mr. Lamborn. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Mr. Coyle, I would like to ask you a question about your
three over-arching points, especially point number one on page
six. And to me, I am going to give you some scenarios. And I
think you will have--I hope you would agree that we have to
question your first over-arching point when you consider the
following.
You say that Iran or North Korea would not be suicidal and
would not do a launch against the U.S., because ballistic
missiles have return addresses. But I can think of--just
sitting here--right off the top of my head, I can come up with
four different scenarios where that would not be true.
For instance, if they secretly armed a terrorist
organization thinking that they could get away with it and
leave no fingerprints; or if there was theft by some breakaway
group within the country; or launch by rogue officials, rogue
officers; or even accidental launch. I mean, in none of those
four scenarios is the threat of retaliation by the U.S. an
effective deterrent.
So even if your point is true that they are not suicidal,
and I am not sure I even buy that point. But even if that is
true, these other alternative scenarios show that we should
have some kind of protection if it is technologically possible.
Even if the risk is slight, the consequence are so serious--it
is a threat that has to be taken seriously.
So when I look at that way of looking at it, Mr. Coyle, I
just can't buy your first point. What is your response to that?
Dr. Coyle. Well, of course, the first two scenarios you
mention, terrorism and theft, missile defense isn't effective
against those things. So perhaps we could put those aside, we
would agree about those two.
The other two that you mention, a rogue launch, accidental
or unauthorized launch, those were exactly the criteria that
the Clinton Administration had for missile defense during the
Clinton Administration.
In those days, of course, we were talking about an
accidental or unauthorized launch from Russia or China--not
from North Korea or Iran--but similar. And the reason that
President Clinton didn't decide then to go ahead with missile
defense for that mission, because that was the only mission. It
was not to try to stop an all-out attack of missiles----
Mr. Lamborn. Understood.
Dr. Coyle. It was because, when his second term was
finished, there had only been three tests. And two of them had
failed. So there wasn't much of an argument that the system
would be effective.
A good question that you are asking is, ``Okay, what has
changed since then?'' And one of the difficulties that
President Clinton faced was that both Russia and China do use
decoys and countermeasures. And so the--the regional
commanders, the CINCs as they were called in those days,
advised him that chances are that our missile defense system
wouldn't work against an accidental or unauthorized launch from
Russia or China, because those decoys would deploy,
countermeasures would work. There would be, you know, these
kinds of problems.
And so that is what I am trying to bring out in my
testimony is, one way or the other, if you think that this
could happen, you have got to deal with the possibility of
multiple, simultaneous launches or launches with decoys and
countermeasures. And that has been something which, until
General O'Reilly, the Missile Defense Agency has been kicking
down the road.
Mr. Lamborn. Well, and I agree with you. I think this
testing is going to be stepped up and beefed up and made more
comprehensive. And I am very happy about that. But you said
that that is in the context of Russia and China. North Korea
and Iran, I think we would agree, are not nearly as
technologically advanced.
And as far as your earlier point, you said that those first
two scenarios somehow didn't apply. But my understanding is
that, as missile technology becomes more advanced, even in
lesser countries, lesser technological countries, like Iran and
North Korea, they are developing a mobile capability. I mean,
these tend to be mobile launchers.
So acquisition by terrorists, whether it is deliberate or
not, becomes easier the more that mobile technology for
ballistic missiles, is available. So I think all these
scenarios are valid. And I am sure there are others that we
haven't discussed.
Dr. Coyle. Well, I would agree with you. The difficulty is
that the systems that are planned and being developed, the
systems in Alaska, for example, and proposed for Europe are
very focused on two countries, Iran and North Korea, not on
other countries or, you know, terrorist groups such as you are
positing. If that is the threat we have to worry about--I hope
it isn't, but if it is--I think that would argue for the more
mobile kinds of systems, shorter-range and more mobile kind of
systems, which as I understand it is where your chairwoman is
going also.
Mr. Lamborn. Thank you for your answers. And I think all of
the kinds of defenses we can field are all valuable.
Ms. Tauscher. I don't think we disagree.
Mr. Lamborn. I would agree with you on that.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you. Thank you, sir.
We want to thank the panelists very, very much. We are just
beginning our hearings. This was our first subcommittee hearing
of this year. We specifically wanted to talk about missile
defense and testing. We obviously believe that it is very
important that we have the system, the suite of systems in its
best capability as possible. We appreciate your efforts to
illuminate the debate. And we will probably be calling on you
again.
Our working relationship with General O'Reilly is very,
very good. And we expect that we are going to be hearing from
him later in the spring as we move on toward doing the mark for
the full committee for the defense bill.
So this hearing is adjourned. The committee offers its
thanks to the panelists very, very much for your hard work, for
your patriotism and for your willingness to be before us. Good
afternoon.
[Whereupon, at 4:42 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
February 25, 2009
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
February 25, 2009
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. TAUSCHER
Ms. Tauscher. What is your current assessment of the capability of
the GMD system to successfully engage and destroy a long-range missile
threat from North Korea--high, medium, or low?
Dr. McQueary. Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) has demonstrated
a limited capability to defend against simple, long-range ballistic
missile threats launched from North Korea toward the United States.
As I have previously testified, my statistical confidence in the
performance of the GMD system across the entire battle space and
against the full range of possible threat types remains low for two
reasons. First, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has conducted only
three intercept flight tests using the operational equipment and
software and all of these occurred within a relatively small portion of
the threat battlespace. Second, the models and simulations used by the
MDA to assess GMD capability over the full battlespace and threat
scenarios have not yet been verified, validated, or accredited for use
in these assessments.
Notwithstanding these limitations, I believe the warfighters have
developed tactics, techniques, and procedures that improve the
capability of the GMD to successfully engage and destroy a long-range
missile threat from North Korea. I defer to the operational commander
for his assessment of his ability to defend against any specific threat
that may be posed against the United States today.
Ms. Tauscher. To what extent was the GMD system designed to be
suitable and survivable?
What specific steps do you believe are necessary to
increase our confidence in the suitability and survivability of the GMD
system?
Dr. McQueary. The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has imposed design
specifications on the prime contractor that in its opinion balanced
need for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system's rapid
deployment with operational suitability and survivability. The Agency
is best suited to provide design specifics and the underlying
rationale.
While the GMD system did not have Reliability, Availability and
Maintainability (RAM) requirements designed into the system, the Agency
implemented a limited RAM program in 2006. For the last year, the
Operational Test Agency (OTA) Team has been working with the Agency to
collect data on the suitability of the fielded GMD components. The
current three-phased review of testing is examining the suitability and
survivability data that have already been gathered. As improved
components are fielded, such as the Capability Enhancement II
Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle, the Agency and the OTA Team will collect
and assess the reliability, availability, and maintainability data.
The MDA has committed to enhance the current RAM program and to
implement a reliability growth program for new components. Building on
the Critical Operational Issues and measures previously developed by
the multiservice OTA Team, the Director, Operational Test & Evaluation
staff, and U.S. Strategic Command, the Agency and the multiservice OTA
Team will identify and prioritize tests, venues and resources needed.
The updated Integrated Master Test Plan (IMTP) will incorporate the
results of this three-phase review. Execution of this updated IMTP will
provide the necessary confidence in the operational suitability and
survivability of the GMD system.
Ms. Tauscher. As MDA develops its revised testing program, what
testing work remains to be done and how would you prioritize the work?
Dr. McQueary. The Missile Defense Agency's (MDA) three-phased test
review began with an agency wide effort to identify the critical
factors necessary to examine system capability for each element and the
overall Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS). The goal is to build a
foundation of models and simulations that will allow us to understand
performance at the system, element, or sub-element level. In addition,
both the developmental and operational test communities are identifying
the other data, such as reliability and maintainability data, necessary
to support their respective evaluations. This review has already
highlighted common gaps across the elements such as modeling of
threats, debris, and general environmental conditions. The focus is to
identify the testing that the MDA needs to accomplish to validate and
accredit the models and simulations necessary to evaluate the
capability of the elements, such as Ground-based Midcourse Defense, as
well as to evaluate the BMDS as an integrated system. The second phase
is developing test strategies to capture the required data. The third
phase will prioritize these requirements and allocate them to the test
resources available, considering all test capabilities and limitations.
The MDA plans to complete this effort by June 2009 and to publish a new
Integrated Master Test Plan that will establish the priorities. The MDA
Director and I will review and approve this plan. In general terms, I
expect the top priority to be collecting the data to validate the basic
system performance models within the likely operational domain of
current threat systems. Once the basic performance models are
validated, the Agency can expand testing to examine emerging threat
capabilities.
Ms. Tauscher. In the Fiscal Year 2008 Annual Report to Congress,
DOT&E continued to raise concerns about the effectiveness, suitability,
and survivability of the GMD system, noting that there was insufficient
information available to make a determination.
What specific actions do you need to see before you are
prepared to declare GMD effective, suitable, and survivable?
Dr. McQueary. To declare the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD)
effective, suitable, and survivable, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA)
will need to accomplish sufficient ground and flight testing to
successfully validate and accredit the models and simulations that we
will use to assess GMD capability. There may also be certain events
which are best empirically measured, such as flight tests with low
radar cross section re-entry vehicles, high closing and separation
velocities, and tumbling re-entry vehicles. Finally, technical analyses
and maintenance data from fielded components will be integrated into
analytical models to provide predictions of sustainability and
survivability. I am confident that the MDA's three-phase test review
will result in a test program that, if fully funded and implemented,
will allow me to assess GMD effectiveness, suitability, and
survivability.
Ms. Tauscher. What multi-mission events, such as cyber attack or
other asymmetric attacks of key assets, have been introduced during GMD
flight testing?
What multi-mission events are planned to be introduced in
the future and when?
How is MDA adjusting its overall information assurance
plan to address these issues?
If we have no such plans, why is this lack of threat
realism acceptable?
Dr. McQueary. Given the overarching safety considerations, flight
tests are generally not an appropriate venue for the introduction of
cyber attacks. The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has conducted this type
of testing on ground equipment and communication links using integrated
and distributed ground tests. To date, cyber-attacks scenarios have
been simulated for Ground-based Midcourse Defense during the Assured
Response warfighter exercise, and are also planned in future Terminal
Fury (1 scenario) and Global Thunder (10 scenarios) exercises. This is
an appropriate method to evaluate the vulnerability and hardness of the
Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) elements and their
communication links to cyber and asymmetric attacks. The MDA is
coordinating the execution of its information assurance plan with the
overall ground test plan. The on-going three-phased review will
identify the additional testing required to validate and accredit the
models and simulations, as well as any other testing needed to complete
a comprehensive survivability evaluation. The MDA is developing an
updated Integrated Master Test Plan that will identify the future
testing needed to address any voids in the BMDS system assessment. The
warfighter's ability to employ the BMDS under asymmetric or cyber
attack is best assessed during ground tests or major warfighter
exercises employing multiple attack vectors simultaneously.
Ms. Tauscher. The Fiscal Year 2009 National Defense Authorization
Act prevents DOD from deploying long-range missile defense interceptors
in Europe until the Secretary of Defense, taking into account the views
of DOT&E, certifies that the proposed interceptor will work in an
operationally effective manner and accomplish the mission.
From your perspective, what are the key operational
differences associated with deploying the GMD system in Europe as
compared to Alaska and California?
What impact would those differences have on how you would
structure the testing program for the European GMD deployment?
What specific steps do you believe MDA needs to complete
before you would recommend that the Secretary of Defense certify that
the proposed interceptor has a high probability of working in an
operational effective manner and is capable of accomplishing the
mission?
Dr. McQueary. I see four key operational differences associated
with employing the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) in Europe as
compared to the current deployment in Alaska and California: the two-
stage missile; the sensors; the command, control, battle management &
communications (C2BMC); and the mission timelines. These key
operational differences must be considered in the testing program for
the European GMD deployment.
It is important to note that while the two-stage missile is an
essential component of the European Capability, the interceptor itself
is not necessarily unique to the European mission. There are certain
scenarios where the employment of a two-stage interceptor from Alaska
might offer specific operational advantages. There are numerous
similarities between the two-stage booster, its associated launch
hardware and software, and the existing three-stage booster. The
Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has successful experience making this kind
of modification. These changes can be adequately tested in the two
flight tests currently proposed by the MDA. On the other hand, there
are two distinct issues with the proposed two-stage interceptor: the
interceptor itself and its performance in the European scenario.
Testing the European mission cannot be accomplished with only one
intercept flight test. I anticipate that the MDA will need to
accomplish multiple intercept tests as well as numerous hardware-in-
the-loop and ground tests, replicating as closely as possible intercept
geometries and the timelines associated with them, to validate and
accredit the necessary models and simulations.
Testing the sensors, C2BMC, and mission timelines--basically the
heart of the European mission--is even more challenging. The very short
timelines associated with threat and target locations, the sensor
locations, and their associated intercept geometries, makes
understanding the coordination challenges and communications latencies
of the C2BMC critical to mission success. The only way to confidently
understand and adjust to these challenges and latencies is to ground
test in Europe after the hardware and software have been deployed
there. If this is not possible, all testing, not just the live
intercept testing, must be accomplished using the current Pacific test
bed.
The intercept geometries, the timelines associated with them for
both decision making and intercept, and the complex command & control
issues must be developed, refined, and tested during both intercept
flight tests and extensive hardware-in-the-loop ground testing while
simulating the European architecture. To do this, there are a number of
issues that must be resolved. How does the MDA emulate the European
Midcourse Radar if it cannot be used for actual intercept testing in
the Pacific test bed? How does the MDA accurately calculate and then
replicate communications latencies in the Pacific test bed? How does
the MDA overcome the limitations with the Pacific test bed that prevent
realistic testing of the European Mission? Ultimately, models and
simulations must be developed and verified, validated, and accredited
before we can be confident in our ability to perform the European
missile defense mission. This process must be accomplished using the
Pacific test bed which is not an optimum solution.
The results of the MDA's current three-phase testing review should
provide me with better estimate of when I will be able to recommend
that the Secretary of Defense certify that the proposed interceptor has
a high probability of working in an operational effective manner and is
capable of accomplishing the mission.
Ms. Tauscher. Would you recommend that the GMD program establish a
master test program similar to Aegis BMD and THAAD?
What impact has the lack of a master test plan had on
GMD's ability to adequately plan for the system's long-term testing?
Dr. McQueary. Both Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) and the
Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) have benefited from having
legacy master test programs. This approach has also allowed these
programs to efficiently and effectively verify and validate the models
and simulations necessary to fully examine their capabilities. The
Missile Defense Agency (MDA) Director has recognized the value of
having a master test program. He has initiated the Agency wide three-
phase review of the test program and directed development of a test
plan that spans the Future Years Defense Plan (FYDP). This new approach
will benefit all of the MDA's programs and will clearly define the
requirements and resources necessary to accomplish this testing.
Ms. Tauscher. Last year, the operational test authorities
accredited the models for Aegis BMD version 3.6.
Does the Aegis BMD do modeling and simulations
differently from other BMDS elements?
If so, what are the key differences?
Are there lessons from the Aegis BMD modeling and
simulation program that could be applied across the BMDS, particularly
to the GMD system?
Dr. McQueary. Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) modeling and
simulation differs from other Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS)
elements principally due to differences in model maturity. The recently
transitioned Aegis BMD build (Version 3.6) leveraged existing Aegis
hardware and software, including associated models and simulations. In
comparison to other BMDS element models and simulations (for example
Ground-based Midcourse Defense and Terminal High Altitude Area
Defense), the Aegis BMD models are older and have acquired significant
anchoring data to support verification, validation, and accreditation.
Aegis BMD employs a number of complementary, element-focused, and
predominantly digital models and simulations. Their results are
rigorously compared and analyzed during pre-test readiness reviews to
gain confidence in the model estimates and to predict system
performance. The results are then compared with the post-flight
reconstructions.
The MDA's actions to conduct a comprehensive three-phase test
review and to develop verification and validation plans for their
models and simulations (supported by anchoring data) are evidence that
the MDA is already applying lessons-learned from the Aegis BMD modeling
and simulation program to other BMDS elements.
Ms. Tauscher. In its Fiscal Year 2008 Annual Report to Congress,
DOT&E noted that theater missile defense systems (e.g., Aegis BMD,
THAAD, and PAC-3) continued to make progress, while strategic systems
(e.g., GMD) continue to face challenges in regards to testing.
What are the key reasons for these differences?
To what extent have Aegis BMD and THAAD's success been a
result of using their original operational requirements document to
guide their testing and development?
Are their lessons from the Aegis BMD and THAAD programs
that we could apply to the GMD program?
Dr. McQueary. There are several reasons for these differences:
1. The Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) mission (defense
against intercontinental ballistic missiles) is a more complex task
than the defense against short and medium range ballistic missiles.
While there was extensive prototype testing, the current GMD system is
still in a predominantly developmental test regime with the first
flight of the new production Capability Enhancement II Exoatmospheric
Kill Vehicle scheduled later this year.
2. The Navy and Army have long traditions of conducting
operationally realistic testing. The active involvement of the
respective Service Operational Test Agencies has contributed to this
success, particularly in determining operational suitability.
3. Unlike the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) and Terminal
High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) programs, GMD did not originate from
a Service program with clearly stated operational requirements. While
it is difficult to ascribe specific benefits to the Aegis BMD and THAAD
programs, operational requirements documents frame the evaluation
requirements that ultimately drive rigorous testing.
In general, Aegis BMD, THAAD, and Patriot have been executing
rigorous, evaluation-based, traditional test programs that use Service
best practices to demonstrate required capabilities through testing.
Completion of the three-phase test review will give the Missile Defense
Agency (MDA) a significantly improved and evaluation-based test
program. Execution of this evaluation-based strategy should result in
verified and validated models and simulations over the expected
engagement envelope with unique capabilities demonstrated through
empirical measurement events. The comprehensive test review is evidence
that the MDA is applying lessons from the Aegis BMD and THAAD programs
to other Ballistic Missile Defense System elements, including the GMD
program.
Ms. Tauscher. How have the missile defense elements, including
interceptors and sensors, proven in their suitability for rain, high
winds, snow or sleet, and other severe weather conditions?
Dr. McQueary. To date, most Ballistic Missile Defense System flight
testing has occurred under benign conditions. This is primarily due to
the fact that, while the Missile Defense Agency follows a combined
operational and developmental (DT/OT) testing program, flight testing
to date has been more developmental in nature requiring controlled test
conditions to meet both test objectives and safety requirements. On the
other hand, all the sensors have tracked objects during a variety of
environmental conditions; they have just not supported intercept flight
tests in these conditions.
Future operational testing will occur in natural environments and
conditions, as they are present on the day of testing, subject to range
safety limitations. As long as safety requirements are met, the test
will execute. However, it would be cost prohibitive to delay a test--
and all the expensive test support--waiting for specific weather
conditions. Therefore, high fidelity ground testing, incorporating
validated and accredited environmental models, will be the primary
means to assess system performance under severe weather conditions.
This includes, when and where possible, testing in climatic chambers
such as will be done with all elements of the Terminal High Altitude
Area Defense system connected and powered simultaneously.
Ms. Tauscher. How was the Sea-based X-Band radar designed to be
survivable?
Have we tested and run exercises to understand this
issue?
What about other BMDS sensors?
Dr. McQueary. The Sea-Based X-band (SBX) radar and the host
platform were designed to support operations in the Northern Pacific
Ocean. The 2007 Winter Shakedown period demonstrated SBX survivability
in extreme environmental conditions. Survivability design
considerations also included electromagnetic interference and
compatibility; information operations; and physical security. The
Department of Defense has developed and implemented tactics, techniques
and procedures to address the physical security of the SBX. In
addition, the SBX was designed to provide for future survivability
(Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical) upgrades. The Missile Defense
Agency (MDA) continues to conduct tests, exercises, and analyses to
provide data to characterize SBX survivability.
For fixed-site sensors such as the Upgraded Early Warning Radars
and Cobra Dane, which are located on military installations, the MDA
and the multiservice Operational Test Agency Team will leverage
previous Service assessments (for example, physical security) wherever
possible. Performance of these long time operational sensors in various
environmental conditions is well understood.
For the AN/TPY-2, the MDA is conducting tests, exercises, and
analyses of data from actual deployments to characterize the
survivability of both the forward-based version and the tactical
version of the radar system. In addition, the tactical version will
undergo environmental testing in the climatic chamber at Eglin Air
Force Base, Florida.
The assessment of sensor survivability is an on-going process.
Where data voids exist, the MDA will address them as part of the
current three-phase test review.
Ms. Tauscher. Due to cost pressures, MDA has removed three flight
tests from the THAAD flight test program. In the past, DOT&E has raised
concerns that this action has increased risk to the THAAD program.
Does it remain your view that MDA's decision to remove
the three flight tests from the THAAD test program has increased risk
to the program?
What specific steps would you recommend for reducing risk
for the THAAD test program?
Dr. McQueary. It is still my view that the re-baseline of the
Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) test program increased
development risk to the program. The reduced number of flight tests,
combined with the loss of data from FTT-04 as the result of the target
failure, means fewer opportunities to demonstrate repeatability of
performance, which raises development risk and lowers confidence in any
assessments we will make in the future. As it stands today, any loss of
flight test data will likely require additional flight tests to achieve
the prescribed knowledge points for THAAD. To the Missile Defense
Agency's (MDA) credit, when the target failed during FTT-10, the agency
elected to repeat the flight test (FTT-10a). This decision reflects
MDA's renewed commitment to an evaluation driven approach.
The completion of the current three phased review will provide
another bottom up review of test requirements. The key to reduced
development risk and a successful program remains a commitment to an
evaluation based strategy that focuses on the information needed to
form an evaluation rather than a specific number of flight tests.
Ms. Tauscher. Do you think that the lethality demonstration
scheduled for 2009 will constitute proof that ABL is operationally
effective, suitable, or survivable?
Will additional tests and analysis are required before
the operational effectiveness or suitability can be determined?
Dr. McQueary. The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is building the
Airborne Laser (ABL) to demonstrate technology, not to demonstrate
effectiveness, suitability, and survivability. The MDA did not
structure the technology demonstration program to provide the data
necessary to make such an operational assessment. Testing leading up to
the demonstration will concentrate on preparations for achieving a
successful shoot down.
Additional tests and analyses will need to be conducted during the
systems development phase. Questions of effectiveness, suitability and
survivability are normally addressed during testing of the production
representative equipment, in this case airframe #2. I cannot draw
meaningful conclusions about the potential operational suitability, or
survivability of the ABL based on the program to date and the success,
or failure, of the demonstration shoot down. Even attempting to relate
lessons learned from the design, development, and construction of the
current ABL airframe to future operational effectiveness, suitability,
and survivability would be conjecture at best. The demonstration
airframe is strictly a prototype built to demonstrate a technology. A
single shoot down during a very controlled, non-operational scenario
will only give a single example of capability at one point in the
projected operational envelope of the ABL. At the time of the
demonstration, there will be no data to draw any conclusions about the
suitability of the ABL. Any survivability conclusions would be
hypothetical, as the current technology demonstrator program is not
structured to address ABL survivability issues. One would anticipate
that the MDA would make many changes in the first developmental ABL,
airframe #2, in an effort to make it operationally effective, suitable,
and survivable. I will be better able to answer these questions during
the development and testing of the first developmental airframe, not
the current ABL technology demonstrator.
That said, a successful high-power laser flight demonstration would
be a major program milestone and could, with additional relevant
testing, validate the feasibility of employing the current platform in
support of high energy laser adjunct missions.
Ms. Tauscher. The Director of Operational Test and Evaluation has
indicated in its fiscal year 2008 annual report, that testing for the
MDA is not yielding enough data to support certification of the
elements at an individual level and at the integrated system level.
How does MDA plan to ensure that the BMDS is fully
tested--including operationally effective and suitable--prior to
continuing production?
How is MDA working with DOT&E to improve the data that
DOT&E needs to certify the BMDS and its elements?
Will MDA continue the approach of concurrent testing and
fielding under the new block structure?
Is that approach still necessary given that the
Presidential directive to field an early capability has been met?
Dr. McQueary. A combination of flight and ground testing together
with validated and accredited models and simulations is needed to
ensure that the Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) is fully tested
and demonstrated to be operationally effective and suitable. An
integrated approach that leverages combined developmental and
operational testing to the maximum extent feasible is essential.
Based upon the on-going three-phase review, the Missile Defense
Agency (MDA) is developing a revised Integrated Master Test Plan (IMTP)
to document test requirements and ensure that they fully accomplish all
required BMDS testing through the Future Years Defense Plan. The plan,
once executed, should also provide all the necessary validation data to
anchor the models and simulations. My staff is working closely with the
MDA and the multiservice Operational Test Agency Team to ensure that
the IMTP addresses our data requirements for certifying the BMDS and
its elements.
The MDA has sought to balance developmental maturity and production
stability, technical risks, and costs, to provide a capability to the
warfighter where none existed. I will recommend certification after the
system has demonstrated a high probability of accomplishing its mission
in an operationally effective manner. The decision as to whether or not
to continue with concurrent testing and fielding of part or all of the
BMDS is a matter of policy best considered after advice from the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Combatant Commanders. My
commitment is to provide the Congress and the Secretary of Defense (and
ultimately through the latter, the warfighter) with the best available
information upon which to make their decisions.
Ms. Tauscher. If a missile defense system has the ``technical
capability'' to shoot down an incoming ballistic missile target, does
that mean the system is operationally effective, suitable, or
survivable and has the ability to accomplish the mission?
What are the differences between technical capability and
effectiveness, suitability, and survivability?
Dr. McQueary. Even though a missile defense system may have the
``technical capability'' to shoot down an incoming ballistic missile,
it does not necessarily mean that the system is operationally
effective, suitable, or survivable.
``Operational Effectiveness'' is the overall degree of mission
accomplishment of a system when used by representative personnel in the
environment planned or expected for operational employment of the
system considering organization, doctrine, survivability,
vulnerability, and threat.
``Operational Suitability'' is the degree to which a system can be
satisfactorily placed in field use, with consideration given to
availability, compatibility, transportability, interoperability,
reliability, wartime usage rates, maintainability, safety, human
factors, manpower supportability, logistics supportability,
documentation, and training requirements.
``Survivability'' is the susceptibility and vulnerability of a
system to a threat and the ability to repair the system following
threat-induced damage.
Technical capability is a system's ability to perform a specific
function or accomplish a specific mission, for example the ability to
intercept a particular threat in a given flight regime. While not all
technically capable systems are effective, all effective systems are
technically capable. Operational effectiveness implies that the system
will perform as desired across the full battle space against the full
spectrum of intended threat systems. Similarly, an operationally
suitable system will perform satisfactorily under the full range of
conditions, not just under a certain demonstrated subset.
Ms. Tauscher. To what extent was the GMD system designed to be
suitable and survivable?
What specific steps do you believe are necessary to in
increase our confidence in the suitability and survivability of the GMD
system?
General O'Reilly. The GMD system continues to mature its
suitability and survivability capabilities. The DOT&E has specified
several critical operational issues to characterize suitability and
survivability, and these are listed in their 2008 Assessment of the
BMDS, dated January 2009. Suitability is defined in the context of BMDS
strategic and theater missile defense operations as being (1)
interoperable, (2) reliable, (3) available, and (4) maintainable.
Interoperability has been ground and flight tested and the Agency
continues to demonstrate good interoperability among BMDS sensors (AN/
TPY-2, Sea-Based X-band radar, Upgraded Early Warning Radar--UEWR, and
the Aegis SPY-1 surveillance and tracking radar). Interoperability with
C2BMC upgrades includes effective communications between the command
authorities who authorize engagements to the weapon system operators at
the fire direction centers. GMD flight test FTG-05, in December 2008,
successfully demonstrated end-to-end testing of the BMDS system with
excellent interoperability among all four sensors and led to the
generation of a weapons task plan, a successful engagement, and an
intercept.
GMD is implementing a comprehensive, but very limited Reliability,
Availability and Maintainability (RAM) program to both quantify
capabilities as well as increase the reliability of the System. The
current RAM Program, initiated in 2006, includes data collection and
assessments of deployed assets, reliability growth testing of critical
components, root cause and corrective action for failures, and a stock
pile reliability program to assess the shelf-life of selected
components. GMD formed a Joint Reliability & Maintainability Evaluation
Team (JRMET) with the Operational Test Agencies (OTAs) to assess the
RAM data generated from field assets and test events.
Specific steps to enhance confidence in reliability include:
comprehensive testing of all components as well as implementing a true
growth program to both increase reliability as well as enhance service
life of the components. The GMD System has much the same reliability of
the initial Minute Man System, which has a comparable missile to the
GMD Ground-Based Interceptor.
The DOT&E reported that GMD Blocks 1 and 3 are partially suitable
for their missions based on a very limited database, and that more data
are required to perform a comprehensive characterization of
suitability. GMD materiel readiness has been maintained over the past
36 months to the point that GMD components are readily available to
meet heightened Readiness Conditions (REDCON) requirements. In
addition, readiness rates have consistently exceeded GMD program
material readiness goals and are consistent with legacy missile
systems.
Survivability is an attribute of the degree to which the system is
survivable against a conventional attack and is survivable in its
intended operating environment. Therefore, the survivability of the GMD
system reflects the security of its primary operating locations at
Schriever AFB, Vandenberg AFB, and Ft. Greely. Additionally, these
sites have been augmented to meet the security requirements established
by USSTRATCOM.
In the area of improvements to Physical Security, GMD is in the
process of upgrading the Integrated Electronic Security System and
overall security capabilities. GMD is working with Space & Missile
Defense Command (SMDC) to definitize requirements that achieve
necessary system effectiveness to secure the Fort Greely, Alaska site.
In 2008/2009 GMD installed Ground Surveillance Radars to improve
detection and plan to increase access delay and denial capabilities in
2010-2012. As part of this overall upgrade we are also exploring the
options to harden existing facilities to make them better able to
withstand direct and indirect attack.
Survivability of network communications is currently achieved via
multiple diverse and redundant communications paths provided by both
satellite and fiber optic links. Ground Systems [GMD Fire Control
(GFC), GMD Communications Network (GCN), Command Launch Equipment
(CLE), and In-Flight Interceptor Communications System (IFICS) Data
Terminal (IDT)] support survivability currently through multiple
computer processors, communications diversity, and geographic
redundancy.
GMD is improving the survivability of its interceptors through
implementation of the Fleet Avionics Upgrade/Obsolescence Program for
interceptors to enhance our current capability to operate in the
operational natural environment.
Ms. Tauscher. What is your current level of confidence in the
ability of the GMD system to successfully intercept a potential long-
range missile launched from North Korea--high, medium, or low?
General O'Reilly. Our confidence in the GMD system's ability to
successfully intercept a long-range missile launched from North Korea
at the United States is high. Our confidence is based on several
factors, 1) Testing of the GMD system, 2) Sufficient weapons (ground-
based interceptors) to counter the expected threat, and 3) Sufficient
warfighter interaction with the system to develop effective tactics,
techniques and procedures.
Although limited to North Korean scenarios, GMD flight testing has
been successful, as evidenced from three GMD Flight Tests (FTG-02 in
September 2006, FTG-03a in September 2007, and FTG-05 in December 2008)
where we intercepted threat representative targets on each occasion.
However, GMD has not tested the battlespace beyond North Korean
scenarios representing simplistic threats. Our analysis strongly
suggests countermeasure tests can be managed during an engagement, and
a series of countermeasure tests will begin with the next flight test,
FTG-06 in the 4QFY09.
The warfighting community has and continues to participate in
ground and flight tests. Warfighters also use wargames and exercises as
opportunities to develop and hone their tactics, techniques, and
procedure to maximize its ability to prosecute the missile defense
mission. They are trained and certified with the most recent BMDS
configuration available, and have demonstrated the ability on several
occasions to activate the system when needed and posture for credible
and effective operational missile defense of the homeland.
Ms. Tauscher. What percentage of the currently deployed GMD
interceptors in Alaska and California would you rate as fully mission
capable for combat operations at any given time?
General O'Reilly. [The information referred to is classified and
retained in the committee files.]
Ms. Tauscher. Recent GAO reports state the GMD element has
experienced the same anomaly during each of its flight tests since
2001. According to the GAO, while the anomaly has not yet prevented the
program from achieving any of its primary test objectives, GMD has been
unable to determine its source or determine the anomaly's root cause.
Please provide an update on the assessment of the
anomaly, including its potential for causing the interceptor to miss
its target.
Please detail how the GMD element has mitigated the
anomaly and whether all the mitigations have been flight tested and the
data analysis completed.
Does this anomaly reduce the confidence in the
reliability of the emplaced interceptors?
And has the shot doctrine been changed to provide a
better chance of probability of kill?
General O'Reilly. [The information referred to is classified and
retained in the committee files.]
Ms. Tauscher. Given its strategic mission to intercept potential
nuclear armed long-range ballistic missiles, why weren't GMD
interceptors designed to operate in nuclear environments?
Do you have plans to retrofit GMD interceptors to operate
in nuclear environments?
What are the costs associated with such an upgrade?
Has MDA planned and programmed for this?
General O'Reilly. [The information referred to is classified and
retained in the committee files.]
Ms. Tauscher. To what extent has the GMD been tested in harsh
weather environments (e.g., rain, snow, fog, etc)?
What information can be learned from such testing?
If not, what are your plans to do so?
General O'Reilly. The GMD system operates in benign environments
since it operates at fixed sites on U.S. military bases. The
interceptors are comprehensively verified after emplacement in silos
whose environments are carefully monitored and controlled. However, the
GMD system-level components have been tested under harsh environments
per MIL-STD-1540. These environments include analysis and testing for
vibration, shock, thermal balance and climatic conditions. This testing
has provided high confidence in the components' abilities to perform in
the widest range of harsh environments expected. Using models and
simulations, the Agency has conducted system-level ground testing
against threats in conditions of rain, high winds, snow, sleet, and
other weather conditions. Results indicate that the GMD system will
meet its requirements.
The amount of useful information from ground testing and analysis
is sufficient to characterize system performance across the spectrum of
conditions expected.
Ms. Tauscher. What multi-mission events, such as cyber attack or
other asymmetric attacks of key assets, have been introduced during GMD
flight testing?
What multi-mission events are planned to be introduced in
the future and when?
How is MDA adjusting its overall information assurance
plan to address these issues?
If we have no such plans, why is this lack of threat
realism acceptable?
General O'Reilly. All aspects and operating conditions of the GMD
system undergo intense scrutiny of multiple Department of Defense
review and test teams to ensure it is protected from cyber and other
symmetric attacks in all operating phases, including analysis of
performance during flight tests. MDA in coordination with COCOMs, JTF-
GNO, and NSA continuously conducts network monitoring and defense in
order to protect the BMDS.
Cyber attack simulations or other asymmetric attacks of key BMDS
assets are not expressly included during development flight testing.
Introducing an anomaly like a cyber attack rendering inoperable a
portion of the BMDS during the course of a developmental flight test
would introduce an unacceptable level of risk of corrupting the test
objectives. However, for an operational test of military utility, or as
part of a warfighter's rehearsal or operational readiness drill,
simulating an attack on the infrastructure would be entirely necessary
and appropriate.
To date, cyber-attack scenarios have been simulated for GMD during
Assured Response warfighter exercise, and are also planned in future
Terminal Fury (1 scenario) and Global Thunder (10 scenarios) exercises.
These scenarios exercise the responsiveness to simulated cyber-attacks.
Penetration tests are regularly performed immediately following ground-
test runs for record. Current Penetration Tests are in planning stages
to incorporate defensive operations and procedures in response to
realistic cyber-attacks.
As part of developing and fielding BMDS capabilities, MDA performs
Information Assurance (IA) compliance validation tests to make sure
BMDS capabilities are IA compliant with DoD standards and can operate
in a cyber threat environment.
As part of the ground test program, while the system is still in
the test configuration, MDA performs penetration testing to determine
if there are any IA weaknesses that could be exploited by potential
adversaries.
During normal day-to-day operations, Blue teams are scheduled to
perform cyber attacks on selected key assets to determine likely threat
vectors that could be used against BMDS capabilities.
The Agency continues to plan for and expand testing to address
emerging threats consistent with the intent of OSD procedures for OT&E
of Information Assurance in Acquisition Programs, and we are moving
towards compliance as our penetration testing capabilities increase.
Our overall information assurance plan provides for a risk-based
implementation of procedures and countermeasures. The cyber-threat is
monitored and analyzed, and those results are made available to GMD and
other elements through a variety of mechanisms including daily
summaries and, for GMD, presentations at the quarterly GMD System
Protection Working Group.
In addition to the simulated threat, it is worthwhile noting that,
from a threat mitigation perspective, the Agency works closely with our
Intelligence Community partners, and service counterparts to identify
the foreign threat to all of our tests--this includes cyber. The exact
details of this are classified, but we generally ensure that safeguards
are in-place to identify, and where possible counter every level of
threat including technical.
Ms. Tauscher. Do you plan to fly the CE1 version of the GMD EKV
against a target with countermeasures in an intercept?
If not, why?
If we don't conduct such a test, how will we have
confidence that the system will work in a real-time combat situation?
General O'Reilly. MDA is currently reexamining its flight testing
program and expects to include additional flight testing of the
Capability Enhancement CE-I exoatmospheric kill vehicle (EKV). A BMDS
test review is now underway to determine the complete body of data
necessary to validate the BMDS models and simulations and the data
needed to validate operational effectiveness, suitability and
survivability. The integrated master test plan will be revised
following the BMDS test review and it is expected that testing of the
CE-I EKV will be accomplished and include the specific objective to
discriminate and intercept a dynamic lethal object from an
operationally realistic target scene with countermeasures.
Ms. Tauscher. In fiscal year 2008, due to technical challenges, the
GMD program was unable to conduct any intercept tests, despite the fact
that Congress had authorized and appropriated more than $200 million to
conduct such tests.
Did the Missile Defense Agency provide the prime
contractor (Boeing) an award fee for its fiscal year 2008 performance?
If so, how much and what was the justification for such
an award?
General O'Reilly. Boeing was awarded $182.48M (66%) out of a
potential fee pool of $276.45M for their performance during fiscal year
2008.
Boeing's less than satisfactory performance during fiscal year 2008
resulted in the removal of $95.08M from the award fee pool. More
specifically, the lost fee opportunities were attributed to:
Failure to achieve any flight test intercepts during
fiscal year 2008;
Missed commitments to deploy up to six new interceptors;
Delayed deployment of new capability to the warfighter;
Programmatic and budgetary impact within GMD and the
Agency due to restructures of the integrated ground and flight test
program; and
Failure to provide a joint product for establishing a
common architecture for the Common Avionics Module.
$33.57M of the $95.08M lost fee opportunity in fiscal year 2008 was
authorized to be carried over to the fiscal year 2009 award fee period.
$25M is authorized to be applied to GMD Flight Test-05 (FTG-05), $5M to
Distributed Ground Test-03 (GTD-03), $3.57M to Sea-based X-Band
shipyard performance parameters, Simultaneous Test and Operations long
haul communications and safety certification, and Upgraded Early
Warning Radar documentation for Transition and Transfer.
The Boeing Company significantly contributed to the BMDS mission in
the following areas:
Excellent job planning and conducting ground test events
GTD-02 and GTI-03;
Exceptional planning and execution of the BMDS system-
level Sensor Characterization Flight Test (FTX-03) and associated data
analysis even though the target flew an off-nominal trajectory; and
Noteworthy support of real-world events such as Operation
Fast Shield.
Ms. Tauscher. The Director of Operational Test and Evaluation has
indicated in its fiscal year 2008 annual report, that testing for the
MDA is not yielding enough data to support certification of the
elements at an individual level and at the integrated system level.
How does MDA plan to ensure that the BMDS is fully
tested--including operationally effective and suitable--prior to
continuing production?
How is MDA working with DOT&E to improve the data that
DOT&E needs to certify the BMDS and its elements?
Will MDA continue the approach of concurrent testing and
fielding under the new block structure?
Is that approach still necessary given that the
Presidential directive to field an early capability has been met?
General O'Reilly. A. How does MDA plan to ensure that the BMDS is
fully tested-including operationally effective and suitable-prior to
continuing production?
In the on-going three-phase test review, MDA, the DOT&E and the
BMDS Operational Test Agency Team are defining how operational testing
attributes can be incorporated within the BMDS test program. As part of
the review, critical operational issues are driving future test events,
to include multiple simultaneous engagements, salvo launches, and more
complex target presentations. MDA is developing detailed test planning
requirements for meeting a more robust system assessment, with inputs
from the BMDS OTA Team and the DOT&E. The review participants are
planning tests with verifiable, quantifiable results, which will take
place over the next three to four years. The BMDS Integrated Master
Test Plan will be approved by MDA, the DOT&E and the BMDS Operational
Test Agency Team and delivered at the end of May.
MDA works with USSTRATCOM, DOT&E and the Military Departments to
ensure adequate integrated development and operational testing. MDA has
sought an appropriate balance between developmental maturity and
production stability, technical risks and costs, to provide a
capability to the warfighter where none existed. The goal is to add
capabilities with demonstrated military utility, as they mature.
B. How is MDA working with DOT&E to improve the data that DOT&E
needs to certify the BMDS and its elements?
One of MDA's highest priorities is to refocus the BMDS test and
evaluation program to determine what data are needed to validate our
models and simulations, so that our warfighter commanders, the DOT&E,
the BMDS OTA Team, and other decision-makers on the Missile Defense
Executive Board have confidence in the predicted performance of the
BMDS. The results of the on-going three phase test review will be a
top-down-driven, event-oriented plan that extends until the collection
of all identified data is complete.
The BMDS test review to date confirms our need to significantly
improve the rigor of the BMDS digital models and simulations of threat
missiles, the phenomenology, and operational environments. The BMDS
Integrated Master Test Plan (IMTP) will define the test program that
will produce the data needed by DOT&E and the BMDS OTA Team to assess
the BMDS capabilities, and will be signed by the DOT&E and the BMDS OTA
Team.
In order to assure close working relationships, the great majority
of the BMDS OTA Team members are collocated with the MDA testing staff
in Huntsville, and the MDA Director for Test meets on a bi-weekly basis
with his counterpart in the Office of the Director, Operational Test
and Evaluation.
C. Will MDA continue the approach of concurrent testing and
fielding under the new block structure?
No. MDA intends to complete DT/OT prior to development programs
being considered for fielding and operational acceptance decisions by
the Services. However, when a contingency need arises (such as
protection of the U.S. from long-range North Korean missiles) the
appropriate COCOM Commanders and Joint Chiefs of Staff consider the
capability and limitations of our developmental systems. If ordered,
MDA will employ components of the BMDS on a contingency basis.
D. Is that approach still necessary given that the Presidential
directive to field an early capability has been met?
MDA uses a capability-based acquisition process that allows MDA to
address emerging, real-world threats as expeditiously as possible. Our
process is based on collaboration with the warfighter community
throughout development, testing and fielding. The priorities of the
warfighter are based on the need to respond to real world threat. The
results of the Joint Capability Mix Phase II study are evidence that
DoD supports the importance of responding to the threat quickly.
In some cases, such as GMD, we fielded limited capabilities to
protect the Nation where portions of the system performance had been
demonstrated in early tests. MDA fielded parts of GMD to provide a
limited capability, and we continue to test in parallel for a full
capability. In other cases, such as Aegis BMD 3.6.1, we have fielded an
operational capability that has been tested and evaluated by the Navy's
COMOPTEVFOR, and continue to field additional capabilities for optimum
BMDS integration and multi-area-of-responsibility use. With THAAD, we
developed an initial capability that we have demonstrated against most
short range threats, but have just begun our test campaigns to address
medium range threats. MDA plans to continue this approach, to provide
critical capability in increments to the warfighter based on their
priorities.
Ms. Tauscher. To what extent has the BMD sensors been tested in
harsh weather environments (e.g., rain, snow, fog, etc)?
What information can be learned from such testing?
If you have not conducted such testing, when to you plan
to initiate such testing?
General O'Reilly. Sea-Based X-Band (SBX) radar and AN/TPY-2 radars:
A. SBX equipment and procedures were thoroughly tested in a
detailed Winter Shakedown test from 3 Jan through 20 Feb 07 in the
harsh northern Pacific Ocean, to include wave heights up to 50 feet and
sustained winds of 60 knots, gusting to 102 knots. The assessment
demonstrated payload performance in Alaska environments; safety at sea;
vessel navigation; sustainment operations; and COCOM and external
agency inter-operability.
B. The AN/TPY-2 radar has been performing very well in austere
environments in both Japan (since 2006) and Israel (since 2008).
C. Cobra Dane and Upgraded Early Warning Radars were designed,
built, and tested by the Air Force. The operating frequencies of UEWR
(UHF) and CDU (L-Band) are minimally affected by weather environments
(e.g., rain, snow, fog). The UEWR and CDU use the same external
facilities (e.g.., array face, structure) that housed the Early Warning
radars and COBRA DANE. The facilities have been in place for more than
20 years and have successfully operated and survived in all
environments during that period. Therefore, specific weather related
testing is unnecessary for UEWR and CDU.
Ms. Tauscher. To what extent was the Sea-based X-Band radar
designed to be survivable?
Have you tested and run exercises to understand this
issue?
What about other BMDS sensors?
General O'Reilly. [The information referred to is classified and
retained in the committee files.]
Ms. Tauscher. DOT&E's latest report indicated that target
reliability was a continuing problem in 2008. For example, in two
recent flight tests, FTX-03 and FTG-05, target missiles did not
successfully deploy the planned countermeasures, which prevented the
elements from developing algorithms needed for advance discrimination.
DOT&E reported that until these target problems are solved, this poses
a risk to future flight tests using countermeasures.
Please provide a status on developing advanced algorithms
for discrimination.
What capability does MDA currently possess for
discrimination? How was this capability verified?
Will additional flight tests need to be scheduled to
understand the discrimination capabilities of the currently fielded
interceptors?
General O'Reilly. [The information referred to is classified and
retained in the committee files.]
Ms. Tauscher. Last year, the operational test authorities
accredited the models for Aegis BMD version 3.6.
Does the Aegis BMD do modeling and simulations
differently from other BMDS elements?
If so, what are the key differences?
Are there lessons from the Aegis BMD modeling and
simulation program that could be applied across the BMDS, particularly
to the GMD system?
General O'Reilly. The primary difference in accreditation status
resulted when the Navy's Commander Operational Test and Evaluation
Force (COMOPTEVFOR), accredited Aegis Element models, primarily MEDUSA,
for Navy operational effectiveness. While in a MDA system-level
performance simulation venue, Performance Assessment 2007 (PA07),
EADSIM was used as the Aegis 3.6 representation which the MDA
Operational Test Agency (OTA) did not accredit for BMDS system
performance, primarily due to model limitations.
In Performance Assessment 2009 (PA09), the Navy is using MEDUSA as
the Aegis representation and will be the first opportunity for the OTA
to evaluate the performance of the Aegis MEDUSA model during a MDA
system-level performance event.
Aegis BMD has a successful test program that provides numerous
opportunities to collect test data to validate their M&S
representations. This is their main advantage that can be shared with
GMD. The lesson learned is that a lack of test data, especially from
flight tests, does not allow OTA to accredit their representations. I
have placed personal emphasis and scrutiny on tightly linking test
events for elements and the BMD system to validating MDA models and
simulations.
Ms. Tauscher. System-level performance assessments are a
comprehensive means to fully understand the performance capabilities
and limitations of the BMDS. In order to have high confidence in
system-level models and simulations, MDA relies on an independent
entity, the BMDS Operational Test Agency, to provide an accreditation.
This organization depends on the verification and validation work
performed by MDA's elements. Accreditation is an official decision of
how much confidence there is in a model or simulation used in the
performance assessment. Currently, the BMDS Operational Test Agency has
fully accredited 6 out of 40 models and simulations, which are used for
annual performance assessments. MDA intends to complete Performance
Assessment 2009 by the end of the calendar year, but it is highly
unlikely that this performance assessment will be fully accredited.
What is MDA doing to make progress in validating models
and simulations?
When do you anticipate that MDA will have a fully-
accredited, system-level performance assessment?
General O'Reilly. The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has implemented
a Modeling and Simulation (M&S) System Post Flight Reconstruction
(SPFR) program to better leverage the performance data that is gained
through Flight Testing for model validation. During SPFR assessments,
BMDS M&S representations are exercised under day-of-flight conditions
to compare model performance to actual system performance. For calendar
year 2009, MDA will implement SPFR validation assessments for system
level flight tests in both Hardware-in-the-Loop (HWIL) and end-to-end
digital performance assessment representations.
The BMDS is a capability based continuously evolving architecture--
a spiral development process. Each delivery of a new missile defense
capability requires the delivery of new models and simulations. The
delivery of new models and simulations requires additional
accreditation. Thus, as new versions of components emerge, their
modeling and simulation representations must be anchored back to real-
world events and data. Utilizing the SPFR program, and through analysis
of the models and simulations database, the level of accreditation and
confidence in the representation of BMDS performance will continue to
increase. As we complete the Performance Assessment 2009 (PA09) effort
in late Calendar Year 2009, we will complete accreditation review,
based on OTA criteria, of the models that represent the December 2009
BMDS configuration. Any model structure or real world validation data
shortcomings indentified in this process will be addressed through
anchoring back to real world events and data when available. Validation
data requirements will be provided to the test planning process. The
completion of accreditation for models of the December 2009 BMDS
configuration will not be precisely known until this accreditation
review is complete. The PA09 model ensemble which represents the BMDS
December 2009 configuration will be maintained and improved to meet any
shortcomings indentified in the accreditation process. The Agency is
restructuring the test program to provide data for Modeling &
Simulation (M&S) Validation. The M&S Verification and Test Design
Process will allow for collection of data parameters through flight and
ground tests. As part of this on-going effort, the system level
simulations, Digital Simulation Architecture (DSA) and the Single
Stimulation Framework (SSF), will provide a fully capable
representation of the fielded 2010 BMDS configuration in October of
2010. The data to support Verification, Validation & Accreditation
(VV&A) of the DSA and SSF is being addressed as part of the scheduling
activity during Phase III of the M&S Test Verification and Design
Process. The product of the Phase III activity is a revised BMDS
Integrated Master Test Plan (IMTP) which identifies the test events
providing M&S validation data. The schedule for completion of BMDS
Block Validation and Accreditation will be completed in conjunction
with the revised IMTP.
Ms. Tauscher. In its Fiscal Year 2008 Annual Report to Congress,
DOT&E noted that theater missile defense systems (e.g., Aegis BMD,
THAAD, and PAC-3) continued to make progress, while strategic systems
(e.g., GMD) continue to face challenges in regards to testing.
What are the key reasons for these differences?
To what extent have Aegis BMD and THAAD's success been a
result of using their original operational requirements document to
guide their testing and development?
Are there lessons from the Aegis BMD and THAAD programs
that we could apply to the GMD program?
General O'Reilly. What are the key reasons for these differences?
The relative level of maturity between the programs is the key
reason for differences noted in the DOT&E Annual Report. GMD was an
advanced concept program in 2002, when National Security Presidential
Directive-23 directed MDA to deploy a set of initial missile defense
capabilities beginning in 2004. GMD early development assets were
placed into operational service to provide this initial capability.
Continuing the spiral development process, while at the same time
responding to real world demands, has slowed some of GMD's planned
progress. For example as a first priority, the initial GMD test program
focused on establishing confidence that the system would in fact meet
the challenges of the early threat.
In contrast, the first Aegis ship was commissioned in 1983.
Starting in 2002, MDA developed the necessary modifications to add
Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense capability into an already existing
Aegis fleet. Sound systems engineering in support of performance
cornerstones was and remains essential to how the Aegis project, and
now Aegis BMD, organizes and executes the ballistic missile defense
mission. A combination of development, system engineering, integration,
testing, training, logistics, technical support, operations and
sustainment has been operating successfully for close to forty years.
Leadership, to include communication, responsibility, authority and
accountability, is a hallmark of the Aegis BMD program.
THAAD was defined as a program in 1992 and went through an eight
year concept definition phase before entering full scale development in
2000, and is expected to deliver its first operational assets later
this year.
Both Aegis and THAAD were significantly more mature programs at the
time MDA was created and given the mission to provide Limited Defensive
Capability through accelerated development, testing and deployment of
the GMD system.
To what extent have Aegis BMD and THAAD's success been a result of
using their original operational requirements document to guide their
testing and development?
Greater system maturity, not the existence of operational
requirements documents, accounts for the greater success of the Aegis
and THAAD test programs. The Secretary of Defense cancelled all missile
defense Operational Requirements Documents in 2002. Since then, MDA
specification documents and test plans have guided development and
testing for GMD, Aegis BMD and THAAD. For each element, testing under
operationally realistic conditions is an important part of maturing the
BMDS. The MDA has been fielding test assets in operational
configurations in order to conduct increasingly complex, end-to-end
tests of the system. Comprehensive ground tests of the elements and
components precede each flight test. MDA increasingly introduces
operational realism into BMDS flight tests, bound only by consideration
of and compliance with environmental and safety regulations.
Aegis BMD uses a number of different BMDS and Aegis BMD documents
for testing and development. However, system maturity and the Aegis BMD
test program philosophy drive their success rate. Throughout its
development, Aegis BMD has employed a deliberate, rigorous and
disciplined technical approach to testing. There is tight coupling of
modeling and simulation, ground testing and flight tests. Modeling and
simulation are anchored with ground and flight test data. Aegis BMD
philosophy to ``test as we fight'' institutes operational realism in
all flight tests. Aegis BMD involves the operational test agent and
warfighter in the early planning and conduct of each mission. Following
each mission, critical Fleet feedback is provided to engineering
development.
The THAAD Project Office had a JROC approved Operational
Requirements Document (ORD) on 1 May 2000. The ORD was the principal
tool to guide the THAAD Project Office through the design phase. The
ORD was used to conduct requirement trades for the System Preliminary
Design Review in 2002 and was used as a guide for System Critical
Design Review (CDR) in 2003. The ORD was not used to write critical
operational issues and criteria for use in current test designs and
operational assessments.
Are there lessons from the Aegis BMD and THAAD programs that we
could apply to the GMD program?
GMD has drawn some lessons learned from Aegis BMD. In 2005 there
were two early GMD flight test failures attributable to flaws, first in
the software, and then with a fixture in a test silo. A mission
readiness task force was established to set standards for rigor in test
reviews. Drawing on lessons learned from the Aegis test program, these
standards were applied not just to GMD, but implemented throughout MDA,
and have resulted in successful flight tests from that point. MDA
encourages the staff at all levels to collaborate and apply lessons
learned both within their elements, as well as across the board, to
improve mission success.
Ms. Tauscher. In 2009, MDA plans to demonstrate the ABL during a
lethality demonstration in which the system will attempt to shoot down
a short-range ballistic missile. The KEI element also has a key
decision point--a booster flight test--scheduled for 2009. In
preparation for this test, the program conducted static fire tests and
wind tunnel tests in fiscal year 2007 to better assess booster
performance. Upon completion of KEI's 2009 booster flight test and
ABL's 2009 lethality demonstration, MDA will compare the progress of
the two programs and decide their futures.
Do you believe that the lethality demonstration scheduled
for 2009 will constitute proof that an operational ABL is feasible and
should be acquired for the boost phase system?
General O'Reilly. No. The lethality demonstration is necessary but
not sufficient to determine if the ABL should be acquired. A successful
lethal demonstration by the ABL will answer two vital questions. First,
is the technology ready? A successful demonstration will prove the
technology is available to engage and destroy a ballistic missile
during a missile's most vulnerable phase before a payload can be
employed or countermeasures can be deployed. Second, is the lethality
concept feasible? A successful demonstration will increase the value of
a layered missile defense while reducing the viability and
effectiveness of enemy ballistic missiles. DoD's intent is to continue
to test and comprehensively assess the current prototype ABL as a
research test bed while refining the design prior to a Tail 2
production decision in the future.
Ms. Tauscher. The 2009 lethality demonstration is a key knowledge
point for the ABL. Upon completion of the demonstration, MDA will
decide the future of the program. Even with a successful demonstration,
MDA will need to determine whether an operationally effective and
suitable ABL can be developed.
Given that the 2009 lethality demonstration is successful
and the ABL continues through development and into fielding, how does
MDA plan to proceed with the development of the system's unique
operations and support requirements?
Starting with the lethality demonstration, please lay out
the key questions that must be answered on ABL in order for it to be
considered technically practical (that is, it can do its job reliably),
operationally practical (that is, it can actually be where it needs to
be and when), and practically supportable (that is, its maintenance can
be performed by military personnel, its maintenance and support is
affordable, and the basing/support operation is feasible in terms of
human safety)?
How does MDA plan to minimize the difficulty of
relocation and unique handling difficulties associated with the ABL?
What safety concerns currently exist with the ABL?
General O'Reilly. Q1) How does MDA plan to proceed with the
development of the system's unique operations and support requirements?
A1) MDA will work closely with Air Combat Command (ACC) to refine
the Concept of Operations (CONOPS). ACC developed the current ABL
CONOPs (January 2007) and has been instrumental in providing user
requirements into the ABL element of BMDS.
The ABL aircraft is a Boeing 747-400F that requires minimal ABL
airframe-unique maintenance and support. These aircraft are in service
throughout the world with a robust support structure. The weapon system
utilizes commercially available chemicals (hydrogen peroxide, salt,
chlorine, ammonia, iodine and helium) that are available globally. ABL
has developed a prototype deployable/transportable chemical mix
facility that will allow the manufacturing of laser fuel at any Forward
Operating Location. A demonstration of ABLs ability to deploy will
occur after lethal demonstration. ABL will continue to mature the life-
cycle operation and support plans through continued tests, studies and
user inputs. ABL will meet warfighter operational and support
requirements and provide a globally deployable capability.
Q2) What are the key questions that must be answered in order for
ABL to be considered technically practical (that is, it can do its job
reliably)?
Key Questions include: Is the ABL lethal against all classes of
ballistic missiles? Can ABL detect and track ballistic missiles
threats? Can ABL compensate for the effects of atmospheric effects
between ABL and the target? Does the ABL provide a capability that
meets warfighter needs?
ABL will address the most critical question of lethality during
ABL's lethality test/demonstration against a threat-representative
ballistic missile in Fall of 2009. Data from this demonstration can
then be used to anchor models to predict lethality against different
types/classes of missiles. Successful completion of this test will also
demonstrate ABL's ability to detect and track ballistic missiles.
The most technically challenging requirement for ABL has been
compensating for the atmospheric effects between ABL and the target.
ABL repeatedly demonstrated its ability to perform this critical
function in 2006 during dozens of flight tests against special aircraft
designed to assess ABL's atmospheric compensation capability.
After lethal demonstration, MDA will continue to generate knowledge
concerning ABL by addressing military utility issues. These follow-on
ABL efforts will develop and demonstrate more robust capability within
the ABL design and address key warfighter requirements such as: BMDS
interoperability, weapon system maneuverability, ABL deployability,
survivability, Reliability, Maintainability and Sustainability (RM&S).
Key technology areas that will be addressed are improving performance
of the optics, optimum chemical utilization, increased laser power,
modularization of the onboard chemical supply system, and increased
beam quality. In combination with the existing RM&S program, these
efforts will ensure that future ABLs provide a revolutionary
warfighting capability.
Q3) What are the key questions that must be answered in order for
ABL to be considered operationally practical (that is, it can actually
be where it needs to be and when)?
Key questions include: Is ABL deployable? Is ABL maintainable at a
Forward Operating Location? Are the laser chemicals available at
Forward Operating Locations?
Actions to address questions: According to the ABL Concept of
Operations, operational ABLs will be primarily based in the continental
United States. Operational ABLs will be able to deploy to Forward
Operating Locations world-wide. The deployment of ABL is dependent on
threat. ACC and STRATCOM will utilize current intelligence to ensure
ABL, as a critical component of the BMDS, is in the appropriate theater
of operations to engage targets to defend U.S. interests, and to
provide critical tactical information to other BMDS components. ABL
plans to demonstrate its deployment capability after lethal
demonstration. Deployment requirements have been documented, a
prototype chemical mix facility has been built and some unique support
equipment is available to support deployment. ABL will utilize common
support equipment available at bases that already support heavy
aircraft. This will reduce the size of the deployment package. During
deployments, required maintenance will be accomplished on the flight
line or in maintenance facilities located just off the flight line.
Deployed ABLs will have technical support and supply reach-back to the
home bases to ensure operational availability. Continued collection and
analysis of ABL sustainment data will ensure refinement of operational
support needs. ABL will have the ability to deploy its entire support
requirements on short notice to anywhere in the world in 72 hours.
Q4) What are the key questions that must be answered in order for
ABL to be considered practically supportable (that is, its maintenance
can be performed by military personnel)? Are its maintenance and
support affordable? Is the basing/support operation feasible in terms
of human safety?
Key question to determine ABL being practically supportable . . .
utilizing military personnel . . . include: Are ABL maintenance
requirements significantly different than other complex weapon systems?
Are maintenance tasks that are required for normal ABL operations
within the capability of Air Force maintenance personnel?
ABL maintenance by Military personnel: ABL, like other complex
weapon systems will have multiple levels of maintenance. Future ABL
logistics support will be a mix of contractor support (depot and
complex repairs) and organic Air Force support. As the program
continues to gain knowledge via the existing ABL, we will be better
able to determine the appropriate level of support required by both Air
Force and contractor support. For deployed ABLs, Air Force maintenance
personnel will perform aircraft maintenance and basic weapon system
maintenance. ABL, with the support of ACC, has performed initial
studies on the various skills required to operate and maintain the
weapon system. ACC will continue to be actively involved in development
of ABL maintenance. ABL will further refine maintenance requirements
during the Characterization and Capabilities Demonstration period
following lethal demonstration.
Key questions to determine ABLs maintenance and support is
affordable: Does the ABL program have a Reliability, Maintainability
and Sustainability program in place? Does the RM&S program address
life-cycle cost of maintenance and associated support? Are efforts in
place or planned to reduce cost drivers?
ABL maintenance and support affordable: During the Characterization
and Capabilities Demonstration period, ABL will perform affordability
studies to include maintenance and support of ABL within the BMDS
layered defense environment. The key components that will be addressed
during this period are the life-cycle cost drivers. The studies
undertaken by the ABL System Program Office and industry partners will
utilize the existing Reliability, Maintainability and Sustainability
(RM&S) program to evaluate factors that contribute to life-cycle costs.
Management of these life-cycle cost drivers will provide the efficient
and effective support of future ABLs.
Key question to determine that ABL basing/support operation is
feasible in terms of human safety: Does the ABL safety program
adequately mitigate potential personnel hazards associated with
operation and maintenance of ABL?
Safe ABL operation and maintenance: At Edwards AFB, ABL has
successfully demonstrated the ability to safely support all ABL
operations since testing of the high power laser in 2004. This
excellent safety record is a result of ABL safety program. We will
utilize this safety program wherever ABL is located. ABL has performed
initial deployment studies addressing issues related to safe operation
and maintenance at forward operating locations. ABL has planned a
deployment demonstration that will demonstrate ABL's ability to conduct
safe operations at various U.S. and foreign bases.
Q5) How does MDA plan to minimize the difficulty of relocation and
unique handling difficulties associated with the ABL?
A5) Operational ABL will be able to deploy to Forward Operating
Locations world-wide. These locations can be at any operational
location where heavy cargo aircraft operate. Runways, taxiways, and
instrument approach requirements are similar to those for other heavy
aircraft. ABL support equipment is comprised of typical military and
commercial aircraft ground support equipment (air conditioning,
auxiliary power, etc.) and equipment that is particular to ABL. ABL
will utilize common support equipment available at bases in-theater
wherever possible to reduce the size of the deployment package. ABL
will require a limited number of specialized support equipment to
service the laser weapon and mix laser chemicals. ABL has developed and
demonstrated a prototype deployable chemical mixing facility. The
chemicals required to operate the High Energy Laser are globally
available in commercial markets (chlorine, hydrogen, ammonia, iodine
and helium). To ensure the quality and availability of chemicals, pre-
positioning of ABL laser fuels at pre-designated FOLs will ensure
immediate availability upon arrival of ABL aircraft. The laser fuel
chemicals have an unlimited shelf-life prior to mixing. Air mobility or
sea transportation can then be used to replenish those laser fuels not
locally available. Transport of specialized equipment will require
military airlift. The amount of deployed equipment will depend on the
operational scenario, but will be smaller than the footprint of the
actual 747 aircraft.
Q6) What safety concerns currently exist with the ABL?
A6) Current ABL safety concerns are categorized into ten hazard
areas--these include chemical containment on and off the aircraft, fire
suppression on and off the aircraft, degradation of critical structures
and critical systems, degradation of flying qualities, solar avoidance,
incorrect pointing, and beam containment. The program utilizes a
rigorous 4-prong safety approach to identify, assess, and mitigate all
safety concerns. First, the Program Office identifies the level of risk
associated with each hazard area, prior to each test series. These
risks are then accepted at the proper level within the MDA. Second, the
Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB identifies, documents, and
accepts any risks associated with testing the system safely. Third, the
Boeing Commercial Aircraft Group assesses the system to determine the
safety implications from modifications made to the `green aircraft' and
subsequently issues a `safe-to-fly' letter prior to each flight test
series. Lastly, an Executive Independent Review Team assesses ABL's
compliance with airworthiness standards and assesses the safety of
flight test risks and hazard mitigations; they also provide a `safe-to-
fly' recommendation prior to each flight test series.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. HEINRICH
Mr. Heinrich. BMDS test schedules are driven by the costs and
availability of targets. MDA has also experienced a number of failures
with targets over the past several years. The lack of affordable threat
representative targets is seriously impacting the adequacy of
operationally realistic flight testing.
What is MDA doing to ensure affordable targets are
available to support adequate developmental and operational test
objectives?
General O'Reilly. MDA is taking a number of steps beginning this
year to ensure targets are more affordable and available including:
Identifying cost drivers in requirements and challenging
their need or identifying other/cheaper ways to obtain data (e.g.,
range sensors already participating in test)
Reviewing and refining the acquisition strategy,
identifying industry capabilities and considering alternative
approaches for supporting the test program. In the industry request for
information released in January, we emphasized that we will focus on
target reliability, affordability, flexibility, and threat
representation. Based on the results of industry input and the
performance of current target development programs, MDA will determine
this summer if recompeting current target contracts is warranted.
Evaluating test campaigns, grouping by threat and by
range, and improving efficiencies in mission planning and execution.
Increased quantity buys for economy of scale.
Increasing the availability of targets by providing a
rolling spare for each mission.
Improving the long-term requirements development process
to allow better target planning across the Future Year's Defense
Program to reduce perturbations in target requirements (a major target
cost/schedule driver).
Mr. Heinrich. A recent study indicated that the Army and Sandia
National Laboratory provided MDA with targets on time and at a
reasonable cost before the targets management and procurements efforts
were moved to MDA.
Has MDA considered giving the targets development and
acquisition program back to the Army Targets Office and Sandia National
Laboratory?
What are the pros and cons of giving responsibility for
development and acquisition of missile targets program back to the Army
Targets Office?
General O'Reilly. Target production is an integral part of the MDA
test mission and there are no ongoing discussions with the Army
regarding assuming this function. The targets procured from the Army
were primarily through a Missile Defense Targets office whose personnel
were direct funded by MDA and used Space and Missile Defense Center
contract vehicles. The Target Vehicles were shorter range, lower
fidelity, targets and did not represent threat capabilities as
accurately as current target configurations under development by MDA.
The lower fidelity targets are, by their very nature, less costly to
develop or manufacture. With the establishment of an MDA targets
office, Army personnel have either become MDA employees or found other
employment and the Army contract vehicles have lapsed or were
transferred to MDA. In addition, targets from Sandia National
Laboratories (SNL) have come under increased scrutiny with the failure
of the last two SNL targets (FTG-05 and FTX-03) to deliver associated
objects. As a result, not all critical test objectives were achieved
despite achieving most test objectives for FTX-03 and a successful
intercept test with FTG-05.
MDA is assessing recent inputs from industry and other sources in
response to an MDA Request for Information to determine the need to
recompete target delivery contracts. All respondents, including SNL,
are being considered.
Mr. Heinrich. Given the greater complexity, difficulty, and risk of
intercepting missiles during the midcourse phase, how important do you
think it is to invest in technologies focused on boost phase?
General O'Reilly. [The information referred to is classified and
retained in the committee files.]