{"id":38421,"date":"2020-07-23T20:15:40","date_gmt":"2020-07-23T20:15:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2020\/07\/23\/canceled-missile-defense-warheads-cost-tripled-schedule-slipped-despite-numerous-warnings-gao-finds\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T23:03:37","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T23:03:37","slug":"canceled-missile-defense-warheads-cost-tripled-schedule-slipped-despite-numerous-warnings-gao-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/land\/2020\/07\/23\/canceled-missile-defense-warheads-cost-tripled-schedule-slipped-despite-numerous-warnings-gao-finds\/","title":{"rendered":"Cost tripled for missile defense warhead, despite prior warnings, GAO finds"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 Despite numerous warnings of critical problems from experts within and outside the government over roughly 10 years, the cost to develop the now-canceled Redesigned Kill Vehicle<\/a> program for homeland missile defense more than tripled, and the program\u2019s schedule slipped by four years, a new U.S. government watchdog report reveals<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt the time [the Defense Department] canceled the RKV program in August 2019, MDA [the Missile Defense Agency] had spent a total of $1.21 billion on RKV development \u2014 $340 million more than the agency\u2019s original estimate for the entire RKV development effort, including eight initial production kill vehicles,\u201d according to the Government Accountability Office report, released July 23.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The estimated cost increased by more than 230 percent from 2015 to 2019, the report said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Pentagon decided to take a \u201cstrategic pause\u201d on the RKV in May 2019<\/a> before outright killing the program in August 2019<\/a>. The department cited \u201ctechnical design problems\u201d as the reason for hitting the brakes and changing course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raytheon was the developer of the RKV, serving as a subcontractor to Boeing<\/a>. The RKV would have replaced the current Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle, or EKV, on the Ground-Based Interceptor, which makes up the Ground-based Midcourse Defense, or GMD, system designed to counter ballistic missile threats. It would have also been fielded on all future ground-based interceptors \u2014 ultimately a total of 64.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The EKV is designed to destroy targets in high-speed collisions after separating from the booster rocket. The EKV required technical changes due to issues in tests, and so the Missile Defense Agency decided to initiate the RKV program. In the meantime, the agency has had several successful tests of the GMD system<\/a> with the EKV following engineering changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEnding the program was the responsible thing to do,\u201d Mike Griffin, then-undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, said. He resigned from his post<\/a> at the Pentagon earlier this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDevelopment programs sometimes encounter problems. After exercising due diligence, we decided the path we\u2019re going down wouldn\u2019t be fruitful, so we\u2019re not going down that path anymore. This decision supports our efforts to gain full value from every future taxpayer dollar spent on defense,\u201d he said at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Warnings<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The RKV program was canceled just a few years ago, the GAO report noted, but before then, the MDA was warned consistently of major issues with the program that could lead to failure. That included concerns from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in May 2010, which came forward with specific performance risks regarding the SM-3 Block IIA missile, which has considerable commonality with the RKV design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, \u201cdespite multiple efforts made by MDA\u2019s engineering directorate to enforce requirements that would have necessitated design changes to address the performance risks,\u201d the program steamed ahead, the report stated, receiving formal agency approval to move forward in June 2015, waiving those requirements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The agency and contractors justified the waiver, according to the report, because it would have required a redesign following a critical design review that would have raised the cost significantly and resulted in schedule delays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The worry was that the RKV used commercial off-the-shelf parts and reused Aegis SM-3 Block IIA components.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Pentagon had its second successful test of the Standard Missile-3 Block IIA weapon. (Missile Defense Agency)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMDA chose to use these parts in the RKV design because of their perceived maturity and cost savings as compared to those used in the EKV design,\u201d the report stated. \u201cHowever, specific performance risks were identified at multiple junctures in the SM-3 Block IIA and RKV programs over the past ten years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During a November 2015 RKV system requirements review, \u201cthe program identified and assessed performance risks as having a high likelihood of occurrence with major consequences,\u201d the report noted. But it was determined that changes to the design could be made later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two years later, during the RKV preliminary design review in March 2017, the program claimed the hardware reuse in the program had been \u201cvigorously vetted\u201d and that performance risks would be \u201cmitigated almost entirely,\u201d the report added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, a red team panel involved in the review warned the agency that the program\u2019s schedule was too ambitious to resolve any problems if mitigation efforts were insufficient, the report noted. Griffin was a member of this read team prior to taking his position as undersecretary of research and engineering in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And in an October 2018 briefing aimed at deciding whether the RKV was ready to go into a critical design review phase, the program showed the testing data of parts that \u201cindicated significant performance risk,\u201d according to the report.<\/p>\n\n\n\t