U.S. Was Warned for Years About Failing $1.2 Billion Warhead
U.S. Was Warned for Years About Failing $1.2 Billion Warhead
(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Missile Defense Agency and contractors Boeing Co. and Raytheon Co. had multiple opportunities since 2010 to address issues leading to the cancellation of an $1.2 billion warhead intended to hit incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles, according to congressional auditors.
Estimated total costs for the “Redesigned Kill Vehicle,” meant to intercept Iranian or North Korean ICBMs, had ballooned to $2.91 billion by the time the effort was canceled, the Government Accountability Office disclosed in its annual missile defense report on Thursday. That was up from an original $870 million estimate in 2015 and the $1.2 billion that was eventually spent.
According to the report, the agency and contractors “did not adequately address technical risks despite numerous warnings from subject matter experts and officials within and outside of the RKV program about the performance issues which later resulted in the program’s cancellation. “
The then-head of the Pentagon research and development office, Michael Griffin, canceled the program meant for deployment in 2023 last August. Griffin was also a member of a “red team” program review who in May 2017 warned that the program’s schedule “did not allow for sufficient time to resolve any issues if design mitigations proved insufficient,” the GAO said. Griffin later became the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering.
The most significant issue undermining the program pertained to a reliance on commercial, off-the-shelf parts and the re-use of” Navy Aegis Standard Missile components, it added. The agency chose to use those parts “because of their perceived maturity and cost savings as compared to those used” in a previous warhead design, the GAO said.
Initial warnings about the warhead’s performance first came in May 2010 from Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory experts and the agency’s engineering directorate, who warned of the need to enforce requirements calling for design changes. But the program received formal agency approval in June 2015 to waive the requirements, said the GAO.
Lessons learned from the failed program are informing the agency’s “Next Generation Interceptor” that’s making full use of competition, early parts testing and test flight of competing designs, the GAO said in confirming the approach announced by current MDA director, Vice Admiral Jon Hill.
Raytheon, which was developing and producing the canceled warhead, is teaming with Northrop Grumman Corp. on a new design for a contract estimated at $11 billion; Boeing is leading a competing effort. Boeing has overall management of the U.S. ground-based missile defense system.
Griffin left the Pentagon this month to pursue a private business opportunity. He told lawmakers in March that Pentagon analysts were 75% confident the new warhead program was a 10-year effort.
Hill suggested it might not be that long. In testimony to lawmakers about the Next Generation Interceptor, he said “we anticipate placing the first NGI in the ground after sufficient intercept testing as early as 2028.”
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.