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	Director, Operational Test & Evaluation
	FY98 Annual Report

SYSTEM DESCRIPTION & CONTRIBUTION TO JOINT VISION 2010

The Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) will be a family of expendable launch vehicles (ELVs) that will execute the National Mission Model (planned launches) currently served by Titan II, Delta II, Atlas II, and Titan IV. EELV will support military, intelligence, and civil mission requirements. EELV will be developed as an evolutionary improvement to existing, expendable launch systems and their components. The EELV system includes the launch vehicles, infrastructure, support systems, and interfaces. The goal of EELV is to reduce the annual and life-cycle costs of launch by 25-50 percent. Payload interfaces, launch pads, and infrastructure will be standardized so that all configurations of each contractor's EELVs can be launched from the same pad. Current planning envisions configurations to support both medium- and heavy-lift requirements. The program reached Milestone I in December 1996. The current competing concepts are evolutionary outgrowths of the Boeing Delta II and Lockheed Martin Atlas II launch vehicles. The acquisition strategy is to retain both contractor versions of EELV throughout the life of the program.

As an evolutionary space launch system, EELV is based on technological innovation being used to secure our nation's assured access to space. EELV will consist of two families of vehicles that can deliver medium and large payloads to precise orbits from 100 miles to 22,000 miles and higher above the earth. This launch capability will enable the U.S. to take the high ground of space and help achieve the military concept of full-dimensional protection.

The existing ELV families can execute the National Mission Model, but they have limitations in terms of cost, interoperability, and responsiveness. Growing competition from foreign launch systems has eroded the commercial market share for U.S. launch providers, significantly increasing the costs to all customers, including the U.S. government. In 1994, a congressionally mandated DoD study led by USAF Vice Chief of Staff General Moorman, developed candidate solutions to the overall problem of modernizing the nation's space-launch capability. One of the solutions is being executed as the EELV program.

On August 5, 1994, the President signed the National Space Transportation Policy, tasking the Secretary of Defense to provide an implementation plan for improvement and evolution of the current ELV fleet. On October 24 1994, the Deputy Secretary of Defense signed the implementation plan for the National Space Transportation Policy, which identified the EELV program as DoD's solution to reduce the cost of launch to the nation. In FY95, Congress appropriated $40 million for space launch modernization providing a positive indication that it supported the initiation of an ELV program. In 1996, the Air Force began to fund the EELV program. The budget supported evolving a current ELV or component thereof into a single ELV family for the nation.

The Air Force released the initial Request for Proposal for the low-cost concept validation phase of the EELV program in 1995. Contracts were awarded to Alliant Techsystems, Boeing Defense and Space Group, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, and McDonnell Douglas Aerospace. Selection of two contractors in 1997 resulted in the retention of Boeing and Lockheed Martin as the two primary contractors. Original plans for further down-select to a single contractor were changed to include retaining both EELV design teams for the duration of the program. This decision is based upon the determination that the growing commercial market for EELV would enable increased contractor cost sharing for EELV development, thus enabling the government to afford dual development costs.

The EELV program is being conducted according to the Secretary of Defense's February 1994 Acquisition Reform Mandate. This mandate directs that commercial practices and streamlining initiatives be used to the maximum extent feasible; and that they be consistent with prudent management. Government insight entails a more open and collaborative relationship with the contractor than does the traditional government oversight process with its parallel system engineering effort and highly formalized review processes. Because the EELV acquisition strategy allows each contractor to have maximum design flexibility and responsibility, the government will work closely with the contractors to gain an understanding of their processes and progress throughout the program.

The EELV TEMP, approved September 1998, describes a test strategy that relies almost exclusively on combined DT/OT. There will be no launches or engine test firings for the sole purpose of OT. Rather, the OT community will participate continuously with the Program Office and each of the contractors to design test programs that meet each of their needs. The test strategy includes extensive use of models and simulations to predict individual sub-system and total system performance. Despite the ostensibly commercial nature of the development program, the government needs to evaluate system performance, interoperability, standardization, and the ability of each of the launch systems to support the National Mission Model in war and peace using only two national launch ranges. It is of particular concern that as the launch range schedules become more saturated with the increasing pace of military, civil and commercial launches, the total launch system loses flexibility and becomes less able to manage national surge requirements without disrupting entire launch schedules. Key to the success of the OT program is resisting the temptation to focus too much on the EELV "day of launch" performance while focusing too little on the logistics and infrastructure that are required to support the entire system and its processes.

Despite the strong positives, DOT&E considers the T&E program described in the TEMP to be the minimum effort required to adequately evaluate the EELV system. There are no test articles or test events planned for the sole purpose of OT, a unique situation for a major defense acquisition program. It is therefore incumbent upon everyone involved to ensure that the contractor tests and government evaluations are comprehensively planned, fully funded, and vigorously executed to answer all developmental and operational test community concerns.

Two OAs are planned for each contractor. The first, from FY97-FY98, supports the Milestone II decision in September 1998. The second, from FY98-FY01 will provide an assessment to support the Air Force Space Command launch readiness decision for the government's first medium-lift flight planned for FY01. The first heavy-lift flight is planned for FY03 and will be included as part of the system IOT&E. Each launch will place operational payloads in orbit. The dedicated IOT&E will begin with the first government launch and is scheduled to be conducted from FY01-FY03. Six operational EELV flights are projected during the IOT&E period. Several commercial flights are planned prior to and during the government IOT&E period; additional data will be collected during some or all of these commercial flights to augment government launch OT data.

AFOTEC concluded the first OA in March 1998. Both Boeing and Lockheed Martin EELV systems were reviewed. The purpose was to assess the potential operational effectiveness and suitability of each contractor's EELV system and determine whether their programs were ready to enter the Development and Initial Launch Services phases of acquisition.

AFOTEC assessed both the Boeing and Lockheed Martin EELV programs as potentially effective and suitable when measured against three Critical Operational Issues:

• Does EELV effectively place specific payloads into their specified orbits?



• Does EELV maintain operations to support the intended launch schedule?



• Does EELV meet standardization requirements?

The OA data was necessarily very limited in scope, consisting primarily of a review of contractor developmental test data, including modeling and simulation and EELV system design information available at program design reviews. However, this information sufficiently concluded that neither contractor had programmatic voids at this phase of development that would preclude it from meeting requirements or threaten planned progress. Each contractor has demonstrated appropriate progress for the pre-EMD module of their program.