A new Government Accountability Office (GAO) audit of the Missile Defense System’s (MDS) sustainment and readiness found the Defense Department “lacks comprehensive guidance for sustaining” the various MDS pieces like interceptors, sensors and communications.
This audit is the result of a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022, which directed GAO to examine MDA sustainment and readiness.
The office focused on nine fielded MDA elements: the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system; Lockheed Martin [LMT] Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD); Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD)-capable ships; Raytheon Technologies [RTX] Army Navy/Transportable Radar Surveillance and Control Model 2 (AN/TPY-2); the AN/FPS-108 Cobra Dane missile defense and space situational awareness radar; Raytheon Upgraded Early Warning Radars (UEWR); the Lockheed Martin [LMT] Long Range Discrimination Radar (LRDR); the floating and mobile Sea-Based X-Band Radar (SBX); and Lockheed Martin Command and Control, Battle Management, and Communications (C2BMC) that feeds information among those various elements.
GAO noted part of the problem is DoD has not identified one specific entity assigned with the responsibility to oversee the sustainment of the MDS, so there is lower visibility to those sustainment needs.
It cited an example of corrosion concerns of AN/TPY-2 radars and THAAD batteries and their facilities to underscore DoD does not have an approach to prioritizing efforts to address specific sustainment challenges. The report said the Army had not yet built permanent facilities to prevent corrosion for the vulnerable elements due to prioritizing other projects and general resource constraints.
The report argues that without comprehensive guidance and a responsible oversight entity with a process for addressing and prioritizing sustainment issues, “DoD lacks reasonable assurance that it can sustain MDS elements and infrastructure to address missile defense threats.”
GAO highlighted how the services and MDA report missile defense readiness data to different decision makers using different systems. Notably, the services record unit readiness data made available DoD-wide and is included in semi-annual reports to Congress while MDA reports readiness data on MDS elements in a different system that is not shared within DoD unless specifically requested.
Specifically, MDA records element readiness via the Missile Defense Reporting System (MDRS) that uses operational availability as its primary metric that describes the percentage of time an element is available to be used and measuring readiness via metrics like equipment readiness rates. However, the military services record readiness of military units, including those that operate missile defense systems, via the DoD-wide system for readiness data, the Defense Readiness Reporting System-Strategic (DRRS-S).
“Various DoD officials told GAO that tier offices would like MDA to share its data more readily, which would enhance the department’s strategic understanding of missile defense readiness,” the report said.
GAO said some Space Force officials told the auditor they were not even aware of MDRS data while other DoD officials said MDA does not deliver the information in a timely manner.
“Officials from the 94th Army Air and Missile Defense Command also stated that they did not have access to MDRS data and that if they had this type of information Army personnel could better perform their missions. The lack of availability and visibility of MDRS data is due to U.S. Strategic Command missile defense readiness reporting guidance not requiring MDA to report MDRS data to DoD offices and other entities, such as the military services and their operational units.”
In another example of disparate systems, Army officials responsible for managing THAAD said the Army uses five different reporting paths to document one maintenance issue, partially due to different Army and MDA processes.
“These multiple reporting paths also have increased the risk of miscommunication or inaccurate information occurring at different leadership levels, according to the same officials.”
The report argued that without DoD-wide guidance on how to address MDS element sustainment challenges, they cannot be comprehensively managed.
The current Defense Department directive that lays out the roles, responsibilities and authorities for MDA, the MDA Charter, does not include information on how MDA or the services should manage sustainment of missile defense system elements.
In 2020, DoD issued a memorandum to establish processes and responsibilities on middle defense acquisition, but GAO noted it still did not assign specific and clear sustainment responsibilities to one entity.
GAO made two recommendations from this analysis. First, DoD should develop comprehensive guidance for sustaining MDA and incorporate that into MDA governance policy documents including designating a specific entity responsible for sustainment of the whole MDS and establishing a process for prioritizing and addressing sustainment challenges among the services and MDA.
The second recommendation is the Secretary of Defense should ensure Space Command updates MDS guidance to require MDA to report missile defense readiness data at least semi-annually to combatant commands, the military services and other relevant entities.
GAO made the recommendation for U.S. Space Command because it recently took the responsibilities for missile defense operations from Strategic Command, in accordance with the 2022 Unified Command Plan signed off by President Biden on April 25 (Defense Daily, June 2).
DoD concurred with the recommendations and said the second one “is already being performed” in a response to the GAO draft included in the final report.