Brian Bradley
NS&D Monitor
4/24/2015
Air Force Global Strike Command plans to start in May removing 50 Minuteman 3 boosters from launch facilities across the missile fleet in compliance with the New START Treaty, though it is unclear if and how, exactly, that will impact procurement of the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD). AFGSC Commander Lt. Gen. Stephen Wilson stated in written testimony to the Senate Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee this week that the command is scheduled to remove nine in Fiscal Year 2015. During the April 22 hearing, National Nuclear Security Administration Principal Deputy Administrator Madelyn Creedon said Russia is upholding all treaty commitments. The U.S. currently maintains 450 intercontinental ballistic missiles encased in silos across North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado. Each launch control center commands 10 silos.
HASC SF Markup Requires SecAF Reports on GBSD
Released April 22, the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee markup for the FY 2016 National Defense Authorization Act included language urging the Air Force to consider the GBSD program’s impacts on the solid rocket motor industrial base, as the GBSD remains in the pre-milestone Materiel Solution Analysis phase. If the FY 2016 NDAA adopts the language, the Air Force Secretary would be required to brief the full House Armed Services Committee on Sept. 30 about GBSD’s potential impacts on the solid rocket motor industrial base, acquisition strategy options, and cost-benefit analyses. “As with all major defense acquisition programs, the committee believes competition generally provides the Air Force with the best combination of innovation, cost reduction, and performance,” the markup states. “The committee encourages the Secretary of the Air Force to develop an affordable acquisition strategy for GBSD that considers the value of competition to maximize benefit to the Government and maintains a strong solid rocket motor industrial base.”
When Will Basing Mode Be Decided?
The Air Force will most likely decide a basing mode for the GBSD sometime after it begins the Technology Maturation and Risk Reduction (TMRR) phase of the project, Col. Ryan Britton, Director of the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Systems Directorate at the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center (AFNWC), told NS&D Monitor. “The analysis of alternatives said for Phase 1, the early phases, we would do some kind of a silo-based intercontinental ballistic missile, but we would preserve [alternative capabilities] if we wanted to go a different route with it,” he said. “So what we are doing is we are designing the complete weapon system, and we will design that weapon system up through a preliminary design and then we’ll make a decision point there as to which direction we go in. So the trade space, the aperture, is wide open right now.” Britton said the system would have “hooks” and “off-ramps” to provide future flexibility.
One industry official told NS&D Monitor that the Air Force briefed industry that it would issue a draft Request for Proposals for the GBSD this summer. The Pentagon did not respond to NS&D Monitor requests for comment on the matter. Another industry official told NS&D Monitor earlier this month that the GBSD program is expected to enter Milestone A, or the Technology Maturation and Risk Reduction (TMRR) phase, in January 2016.
One Weapon System
The Minuteman 3 has been recapitalized through incremental subcomponent contracts at differing periods, but awards for the GBSD’s integrated missile stack, command and control (C2) system and infrastructure—including launch facilities and launch control centers—will be awarded during a concurrent timeframe, starting in Fiscal Year 2017, according to Air Force briefing slides. “It’s not a bunch of disparate flight systems; it’s not a ground system where there’s a launch control center; it’s not a missile site with some infrastructure. It’s one weapon system,” said Lt. Gen. John Thompson, Commander of Air Force Life Cycle Management Center. “And as we’ve done life cycle support for it over these many years, we just treated it like a bunch of ‘eaches,’ instead of one integrated operating system.” President Barack Obama has asked for $75 million in FY 2016 and the Air Force has programmed $945 million over the five-year Future Years’ Defense Program for the GBSD. On March 9, the service announced plans to award multiple contracts for GBSD’s TMRR phase, before down-selecting during the Engineering & Manufacturing Development (EMD) phase.
‘Horse Trading’
Several industry officials said ICBM acquisition leaders hold different opinions on what GBSD requirements should be. One executive characterized the internal politics as “pushing and shoving.” Another official called the interplay normal “horse trading,” a natural iteration of the process. “In the area of accuracy, we’ve heard over the last several years, several different requirements for accuracy, and it’ll converge at some point on something,” one official said. “But the good news is they’re all having the dialogue and the understanding of what it means to the weapons system or weapons systems have to be procured.” STRATCOM’s viewpoint is a third variable, said a different official. “You throw the influence of U.S. Strategic Command in there, which is the ultimate warfighter, where the guys in the basement are planning out targets and all of that, and they have an influence on the requirements,” the official said.
‘Concurrent Risk’ an Issue
Thompson said the updated holistic procurement method might help boost the Air Force’s confidence with certain system aspects, which could create more space for the service to take prudent risks. James Colasacco, Chief of STRATCOM’s Global Strike Capabilities Division (J87), pointed out the 2014 internal and external nuclear enterprise reviews showed a period of “concurrent risk” during the 2020s and 2030s, as the Air Force works two ICBM acquisition programs. “The challenge will be sustainment of current systems while simultaneously executing modernization programs,” he said. “We find this to be one of the most significant challenges. Obviously, you have to have an eye on the ball to keep operational availability high, a safe, secure and effective capability to ensure credible force.” Colasacco added that STRATCOM’s view on the new weapon system is to improve reliability and performance, make the system easier to maintain and secure and lower ownership costs.
Price to Be a Factor
Britton said affordability will be a determining factor in the GBSD contract award, and emphasized simplicity as a key for the weapon system. “We get into these meticulous designs in our weapons systems where [we] have these exquisite designers and they’re artists in what they do, but you know, they all want to use their own individual … resistor, capacitor, and then we end up with thousands and thousands and thousands of different parts,” he said. “And that drives up your cost. What we should look for is more of the Apollo 13 model, where they had to fix the spacecraft in space, and they said, ‘Here’s your box of parts. Go design a solution.’”
Weapon Lifespan
Designers geared the Minuteman 3 for a 10- to 15-year pre-recapitalization lifespan, but GBSD hardware will be built to operate for at least 30 years, said Col. Mark Suriano, Director of AFNWC’s Nuclear Capabilities Directorate. The service wants to discuss with industry about programming, budgeting, operations and personnel throughout the GBSD life cycle, he said. “So how do we not repeat history as we go forward again, to say, ‘OK, we’re going to design it, we’re going to develop it,’ and then back away and say, ‘Thanks, industry. Thanks, everybody. We’ll see you again in another 30 years,’” Suriano said. “We can’t do that.”
Ensuring Quality and Affordability?
Britton told NS&D Monitor that the ICBM fuze program is the first piece of the GBSD. Research and development began in Fiscal Year 2014, and the FY 2015 omnibus appropriated $59.8 million for R&D on the program. The Air Force is working to ensure quality without sacrificing affordability by collaborating with the Navy on test procedures, as certain parts get double-tested, he said. “A lot of these components have gone through testing already, so it really shortens our test window for certification, but you get a second bite of the apple,” Britton said. “So we think that some of the commonality things that we’re doing are actually driving more reliability in the weapon system, because we have more faith because it’s already been tested once on the Navy platform.”
Rusty Industrial Base
But not everything is going perfectly in GBSD development. The Air Force is blazing a path of affordability and quality specifications, as the ICBM industrial base is not as seasoned as it was in the 1980s, when nuclear weapons drove the defense business, electronics, and “most commercial industry,” Suriano told NS&D Monitor. “Intel would rather make chips for cell phones or other things like that, or desktop computers, than doing stuff we need to. So it’s [about] how do we adjust to that by making sure the parts are secure, the supply chain is squared away?” he said. “How do we make sure that we’re reducing that cost and making sure it’s effective, we’re all in this together and in using the best practices, using the same type of suppliers, understanding what’s going on?”
Air Force Nuclear Fund?
Suriano told NS&D Monitor, in his opinion, that a fenced-off Air Force nuclear weapons fund, much like the Navy’s Sea-Based Deterrence Fund, could energize the enterprise. Wilson, commander of Global Strike Command, in September said the service was considering pushing for an Air Force nuclear fund, akin to the Navy account for the Ohio-class Replacement. But the possibility of internal politics flaring up could demand the Defense Department give the concept extra scrutiny, he said. After the process of planning, programming and budgeting (PPB) personnel sending the service budget up through the Office of the Secretary of Defense and into the public, often, certain staff object to the final figures, Suriano said. In those cases, DoD could either realign or tell the service to make due. “I think, in general, [a nuclear fund] would be a good idea, but the implementation is one that you’d have to kind of look at across the board,” Suriano said.
Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James last month said she personally doesn’t think the service needs a separate nuclear fund. “If that’s the way Congress decides to go, we’re committed to funding the nuclear enterprise appropriately if it’s in our base budget or separately. We, too, have made the case, as Navy’s made, that nuclear is a very national capability I would say, and so there’s a lot of needs in the US Air Force,” she said March 23 at the Carnegie Nuclear Policy Conference. “We can get some help with that, and we’re all for it in terms of pooling resources and whatnot, but regardless of how it’s funded, we’re committed to it.”
With or without a nuclear fund, affordability will likely continue to be a primary driver in GBSD procurement. At the TRIAD Forum in Ogden, Utah, last month, Britton told industry: “I just ask you and I challenge you that when you are looking toward the future, sharpen your pencil for us. Help us look for those common places where we can drive that cost down. And I’m not talking about common missiles as much or the exact same guidance system as much as I’m talking about common subcomponents—common accelerometers, common gyros, things that we can use together, because that’s how you really bend that cost curve for the Department of Defense and for the nation.”
