The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is making improvements, but for the fourth year in a row the agency’s cost estimates are unreliable, the Government Accountability Office says in a new report.
Photo: Missile Defense Agency
For example, the GAO said, “MDA’s 2013 cost estimates still do not include operations and support costs for military services, which may significantly understate total costs.”
Overall, the report finds “mixed progress” in achieving acquisition goals in 2013. Since 2002, MDA has spent about $98 billion and has requested $38 billion more through 2018 to develop, test and field a system to defend against enemy ballistic missiles, the report said.
The report, GAO-14-351, “Missile Defense, Mixed Progress in Achieving Acquisition Goals and Improving Accountability,” said Congress has recently required MDA to include these costs in future acquisition baselines, which may improve transparency.
Also, the report said, MDA’s schedule baselines are presented in a way that makes it hard to to assess progress.
“Specifically, MDA’s 2013 schedule baselines include numerous events but provide very little information about them, making it difficult to understand what the events are and why they are important.”
And third, GAO said the 2013 schedule baselines do not compare the current event dates with previously reported dates, so decision makers cannot easily assess how the program is performing over time. “Until MDA improves the quality and comprehensiveness of its cost estimates and the content of its schedule information, its baselines will not be useful for decision makers to gauge progress.”
DoD supports GAO’s recommendation to improve the content of its schedule baselines.
Cost estimates were only part of the GAO study, which also looked at progress toward achieving acquisition goals to develop, test and produce ballistic missile defense system elements.
MDA found success in an operational flight testing where warfighters from several combatant commands used multiple BMDS elements simultaneously. It also was successful in conducting developmental flight tests demonstrating key capabilities and modifications made to resolve prior production issues.
However, GAO reported, the Aegis BMD and Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) continued to have test and development challenges.
In Aegis BMD, despite three successful intercept flight tests with the Standard Missile (SM)-3 Block 1B missile supporting a full production decision expected in fiscal year 2015, a missile failed during one test.
“Although the cause of failure is not known, the program plans to move forward with missile production in 2014,” the report said. “The program is also determining whether a key component that is common with the already fielded SM-3 Block 1A missile will need to be redesigned.
GAO recommended any changes to the SM-3 Block IB be flight tested before the Defense Department approved full production, which DoD partially supported.
For GMD, despite success in a non-intercept test of its upgraded interceptor, “the program is nearing a seven-year delay in completing its first successful intercept,” the report said. “Until this upgraded interceptor is demonstrated in an intercept test expected to be conducted in the third quarter of fiscal year 2014, manufacturing and deliveries remain on hold.”
The report also said a July 2013 flight test of the fielded interceptor failed. That test was designed to assess the fielded interceptor under more challenging conditions and to confirm design changes to resolve prior issues. MDA hasn’t made a decision on how to proceed because the reason the test failed is still to be determined.
DoD disagreed with GAO’s recommendation to retest the fielded GMD interceptor to demonstrate performance.
For both the Aegis BMD GMD recommendations, DoD said production and testing decisions will be made using the proper DoD processes. However, GAO believes both recommendations are valid.