Sec. 1615. Testing and assessment of missile defense systems prior to production and deployment
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Congress makes the following findings: The initial acquisition approach to the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system did not follow standard acquisition practices, including the fly before you buy approach of adequately testing and demonstrating the performance of major defense systems before final production and deployment. Consequently, the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system was deployed in 2004 without any intercept flight tests of the production interceptor and kill vehicle, and was fielded with a prototype experimental design kill vehicle that had not been fully engineered, developed, or tested.
In July 2013, the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system had a flight test failure with the initially-deployed Capability Enhancement-I Kill Vehicle because the kill vehicle failed to separate from the booster. The upgraded Capability Enhancement-II Kill Vehicle was deployed starting in 2008, prior to any successful intercept flight tests, and it has not had any successful intercept flights test as of May 2014. As a result of this highly concurrent acquisition approach, the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system has had a variety of kill vehicle problems that have caused several flight test failures since 2010, which have required more than $1,300,000,000 and four years of effort to correct.
It is the sense of Congress that— it is a high priority that United States ballistic missile defense systems should work in an operationally effective and cost-effective manner; prior to making final production decisions for and prior to operational deployment of such systems, the United States should conduct operationally realistic intercept flight testing, which should create sufficiently challenging operational conditions to establish confidence that such systems will work in an operationally effective and cost-effective manner when needed; and in order to achieve these objectives, and to avoid post-production and post-deployment problems like those encountered with the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, it is essential for the Department of Defense to follow a fly before you buy approach to adequately test and assess the elements of the Ballistic Missile Defense System before final production decisions or operational deployment.
Prior to making a final production decision for, and prior to the operational deployment of, a new or substantially upgraded interceptor or weapon system of the Ballistic Missile Defense System, the Secretary of Defense shall ensure that— sufficient and operationally realistic testing of the system is conducted to assess the performance of the system in order to inform a final production decision or an operational deployment decision; and the results of such testing have demonstrated a high probability that the interceptor or weapon system will work in an operationally effective manner and has the ability to accomplish its intended mission.
Prior to any final production decision or operational deployment described in subsection (c), the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation shall— provide to the Secretary the assessment of the Director, based on the available test data, of the sufficiency, adequacy, and results of the testing of such system, including an assessment of whether the system will be sufficiently effective, suitable, and survivable when needed; and provide to the congressional defense committees a written summary of that assessment.