Missile Defense: Review of Allegations about an Early National	 
Missile Defense Flight Test (28-FEB-02, GAO-02-125).		 
                                                                 
The Department of Defense (DOD) awarded contracts to three	 
companies in 1990 to develop and test exoatmospheric kill	 
vehicles. One of the contractors--Boeing North			 
American--subcontracted with TRW to develop software for the kill
vehicle. In 1998, Boeing became the Lead System Integrator for	 
the National Missile Defense Program and chose Raytheon as the	 
primary kill vehicle developer. Boeing and TRW reported that the 
June 1997 flight test achieved its primary objectives but	 
detected some sensor abnormalities. The project office relied on 
Boeing to oversee the performance of TRW. Boeing and TRW reported
that deployed target objects displayed distinguishable features  
when being observed by an infrared sensor. After considerable	 
debate, the program manager reduced the number of decoys planned 
for intercept flight tests in response to a recommendation by an 
independent panel. The Phase One Engineering Team, which was	 
responsible for completing an assessment of TRW's software	 
performance within two months using available data, found that	 
although the software had weaknesses, it was well designed and	 
worked properly, with only some changes needed to increase the	 
robustness of the discrimination function. On the basis of that  
analysis, team members predicted that the software would perform 
successfully in a future intercept test if target objects	 
deployed as expected.						 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-02-125 					        
    ACCNO:   A02357						        
  TITLE:     Missile Defense: Review of Allegations about an Early    
National Missile Defense Flight Test				 
     DATE:   02/28/2002 
  SUBJECT:   Air defense systems				 
	     Ballistic missiles 				 
	     Computer software					 
	     Data collection					 
	     Military research and development			 
	     Military systems analysis				 
	     National defense operations			 
	     Research and development contracts 		 
	     Testing						 
	     Weapons research and development			 
	     DOD National Missile Defense Program		 

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GAO-02-125
     
United States General Accounting Office

GAO

Report to Congressional Requesters

February 2002

MISSILE DEFENSE

Review of Allegations about an Early National Missile Defense Flight Test

GAO-02-125

Contents

Letter 1

Disclosure of Key Results and Limitations 5
Evaluations of TRW's Discrimination Software 6
Justice's Decision Not to Join Suit 8
Steps   to   Assure  Independent   and   Objective  Review   by  the   Phase

One Engineering Team 9
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 9

Appendix I Disclosure of Flight Test's Key Results and

Limitations 11

The Test 11
Reported Key Results and Limitations 13
Effect of Cooling Failure on Sensor's Performance 22

Appendix II Evaluations of TRW's Software and a Planned

Enhancement 24

Nichols Evaluation of TRW's Discrimination Software 24
Phase One Engineering Team's Evaluation 27
Evaluations   of   the  Extended   Kalman   Filter   Feature  Extractor   30

Appendix III Justice's Decision Not to Join Lawsuit 34

Information   from  the   Army   Space  and   Missile  Defense   Command  34
Recommendation of the Army Legal Services Agency 34

Appendix IV Steps to Assure Independent and Objective Review

by the Phase One Engineering Team 36

The Phase One Engineering Team 36
Alternative Panel Composition 38

Appendix V Boeing Integrated Flight Test 1A Requirements
and Actual Performance as Reported by Boeing
and TRW 40

Appendix VI Scope and Methodology 42

          Appendix VII Comments from the Department of Defense 44

     Appendix VIII                          Major Contributors                        45
                                    Acquisition and Sourcing Management               45
                                       Applied Research and Methods                   45
                                              General Counsel                         45

Tables

Table 1: What and When Key Results and Limitations Were Included in
Contractors' Written Reports 13 Table 2: Integrated Flight-Test 1A
Requirements Established by Boeing and Actual Performance 40

United States General Accounting Office Washington, DC 20548

February 28, 2002

The Honorable Charles E. Grassley United States Senate

The Honorable Howard L. Berman House of Representatives

For a number of years, the Department of Defense has been researching and
developing defenses against ballistic missile attacks on the United States,
its deployed forces, friends, and allies. In 1990, the Department awarded
research and development contracts to three contractors to develop and test
exoatmospheric kill vehicles.1 The Department planned to use the best of the
three vehicles in a follow-on missile defense program. One of the
contractors, Rockwell International, subcontracted a portion of its kill
vehicle design work to TRW. TRW was tasked with developing software that
could operate on a computer onboard the kill vehicle. The software was to
analyze data collected in flight by the kill vehicle's sensor (which
collects real-time information about threat objects), enabling the kill
vehicle to distinguish an enemy warhead from accompanying decoys.2

The three contractors proceeded with development of the kill vehicle designs
and built and tested key subsystems (such as the sensor) until 1994. In
1994, the Department of Defense eliminated Martin Marietta from the
competition. Both Rockwell-portions of which in December 1996 became Boeing
North American-and Hughes-now Raytheon- continued designing and testing
their kill vehicles. In 1997 and 1998, the National Missile Defense Joint
Program Office3 conducted tests, in space, of the sensors being developed by
the contractors for their competing kill vehicles. Boeing's sensor was
tested in June 1997 (Integrated Flight Test 1A) and Raytheon's sensor was
tested in January 1998 (Integrated Flight Test 2). Program officials said
these tests were not meant to demonstrate

1 An exoatmospheric kill vehicle is the part of a defensive missile that is
designed to hit and destroy an incoming enemy warhead above the earth's
atmosphere.

2 In some instances, the system may also use ground radar data.

3 The National Missile Defense Joint Program Office reports to the Ballistic
Missile Defense Organization within the Department of Defense. The National
Missile Defense program is now known as the Ground-based Midcourse Missile
Defense Program and the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization is now the
Missile Defense Agency.

that the sensor met performance requirements, nor were they intended to be
the basis for any contract award decisions. Rather, they were early research
and development tests that the program office considered experiments to
primarily reduce risk in future flight tests. Specifically, the tests were
designed to determine if the sensor could operate in space; to examine the
extent to which the sensor could detect small differences in infrared
emissions; to determine if the sensor was accurately calibrated; and to
collect target signature4 data for post-mission discrimination analysis.

After the two sensor tests, the program office planned another 19 flight
tests from 1999 through 2005 in which the kill vehicle would attempt to
intercept a mock warhead. Initially, Boeing's kill vehicle was scheduled for
testing in Integrated Flight Test 3 and Raytheon's in Integrated Flight Test

4. However, Boeing became the Lead System Integrator for the National
Missile Defense Program in April 1998 and, before the third flight test was
conducted, selected Raytheon as the primary kill vehicle developer.5

Meanwhile, in September 1995, TRW had hired a senior staff engineer, Dr.
Nira Schwartz, to work on various projects, including the company's effort
to develop the exoatmospheric kill vehicle's discrimination software. The
engineer helped evaluate some facets of a technology known as the Extended
Kalman Filter Feature Extractor,6 which TRW planned to add as an enhancement
to its discrimination software. The engineer reported to TRW in February
1996 that tests revealed that the Filter could not extract the key
characteristics, or features, from various target objects that an enemy
missile might deploy and demanded that the company inform Rockwell and the
Department of Defense. TRW fired the engineer in March 1996. In April 1996,
the engineer filed a lawsuit under the False Claims Act7 alleging that TRW8
falsely reported or hid

4 A target object's signature is the set of infrared signals emitted by the
target.

5 The Department of Defense continued funding the Boeing kill vehicle at a
reduced level as a backup to Raytheon's kill vehicle. In mid-2000, the
Department terminated all funding for Boeing's kill vehicle, ending TRW's
involvement in development of the kill vehicle's discrimination software.

6 The Kalman Filter is a mathematical model commonly used in real time data
processing to estimate a variable of interest, such as an object's position
or velocity. The Extended Kalman Filter Feature Extractor is used to extract
features, which are used to perform discrimination.

7 31 USC 3729-3733.

information to make the National Missile Defense Joint Program Office
believe that the Extended Kalman Filter Feature Extractor met the
Department's technical requirements. The engineer has amended the lawsuit
several times, including adding allegations that TRW misled the Department
of Defense about the ability of its discrimination software to distinguish a
warhead from decoys and that TRW's test reports on Integrated Flight Test 1A
falsely represented the discrimination software's performance.

The False Claims Act allows a person to bring a lawsuit on behalf of the
U.S. government if he or she has knowledge that a person or company has made
a false or fraudulent claim against the government. If the suit is
successful, the person bringing the lawsuit may share in any money
recovered. The Department of Justice reviews all lawsuits filed under the
act before deciding whether to join them. If it does, it becomes primarily
responsible for prosecuting the case.

To determine whether it should join the engineer's lawsuit against TRW,
Justice asked the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, a unit within the
Department of Defense Inspector General's office,9 to examine the
allegations. The engineer cooperated with the Investigative Service for more
than 2 years. During the course of the Department of Defense's investigation
into the allegations of contractor fraud, two groups examined the former
employee's specific allegations regarding the performance of TRW's basic
discrimination software and performed limited evaluations of the Extended
Kalman Filter Feature Extractor. The first was Nichols Research Corporation,
a contractor providing technical assistance to the Ground Based Interceptor
Project Management Office for its oversight of the exoatmospheric kill
vehicle contracts. (This office within the National Missile Defense Joint
Program Office is responsible for the exoatmospheric kill vehicle
contracts.) Because an investigator for the Defense Criminal Investigative
Service was concerned about the ability of Nichols to provide a truly
objective assessment, the National Missile Defense Joint Program Office
asked an existing advisory group, known as

8 Rockwell, now Boeing North American, was later added to the lawsuit.

9  Department  of  Justice  officials told  us  that  they  often use  other
agencies' investigative units to investigate contractor fraud cases.

the Phase One Engineering Team,10 to undertake another review of the
specific allegations of fraud with respect to the software. This group is
comprised of scientists from Federally Funded Research and Development
Centers who were selected for the review team because of their knowledge of
the National Missile Defense system. In addition, both Nichols and the Phase
One Engineering Team assessed the feasibility of using the Extended Kalman
Filter Feature Extractor to extract additional features from target objects
that an enemy missile might deploy.11

The Department of Justice and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service
investigated the engineer's allegations until March 1999. At that time, the
Department of Justice decided not to intervene in the lawsuit. The engineer
has continued to pursue her lawsuit without Justice's intervention.

Because you were the principal sponsors of the 1986 amendments to the False
Claims Act and are interested in eliminating fraud in federal government
programs, you asked that we review the former TRW employee's allegations. As
agreed with your offices, we focused our review on Integrated Flight Test
1A. We also examined the evaluations of TRW's discrimination software and
Extended Kalman Filter Feature Extractor conducted by Nichols Research
Corporation and the Phase One Engineering Team. To answer your question
regarding whether the Phase One Engineering Team's evaluation was objective
and unbiased, we examined how the National Missile Defense Joint Program
Office addressed the team's potential conflicts of interest. We also
reviewed the basis for the Department of Justice's decision not to intervene
in the

10 The Phase One Engineering Team, according to its director, was
established in 1988 by the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization-later
known as the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization-as an umbrella mechanism
to obtain technical and engineering support from Federally Funded Research
and Development Centers. To ensure that the scientists who work on each
review undertaken by the Phase One Engineering Team have the requisite
expertise in the subjects they are asked to review, the membership on each
review team varies with each assignment. The team assembled to review TRW's
software included two individuals from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology's Lincoln Laboratory, two from Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory, and one from the Aerospace Corporation.

11 In October 1996, TRW removed the Extended Kalman Filter Feature Extractor
from its discrimination software. According to company officials, the Filter
required computer speed and memory resources that were not available in the
kill vehicle's onboard processor. In addition, the officials said that the
basic discrimination software would perform adequately even without the
Filter.

Disclosure of Key Results and Limitations

former TRW employee's lawsuit. Specifically, this report addresses the
following questions:

1. Did Boeing and TRW disclose the key results and limitations of the flight
test to the National Missile Defense Joint Program Office?

2. What were the methodology, findings, and limitations of the evaluations
conducted by Nichols Research Corporation and the Phase One Engineering Team
of TRW's discrimination software and the Extended Kalman Filter Feature
Extractor?

3. What was the basis for the Department of Justice's decision not to join
the lawsuit?

4. How did the National Missile Defense Joint Program Office assure itself
that the Phase One Engineering Team could provide an independent and
objective review?

Boeing and TRW disclosed the key results and limitations of Integrated
Flight Test 1A in written reports released between August 13, 1997, and
April 1, 1998. The contractors explained in a report issued 60 days after
the June 1997 test that the test achieved its primary objectives, but that
some sensor abnormalities were noted.12 For example, while the report
explained that the sensor detected the deployed targets and collected some
usable target signals, the report also stated that some sensor components
did not operate as desired and the sensor often detected targets where there
were none. In December 1997, the contractors documented other test
anomalies. According to briefing charts prepared for a December meeting, the
Boeing sensor tested in Integrated Flight Test 1A had a low probability of
detection; the sensor's software was not always confident that it had
correctly identified some target objects; the software significantly
increased the rank of one target object toward the end of the flight; and
in-flight calibration of the sensor was inconsistent. Additionally, on April
1, 1998, the contractors submitted an addendum to an earlier report that
noted two more problems. In this addendum, the contractors disclosed that
their claim that TRW's software successfully distinguished a mock warhead
from decoys during a post-flight analysis

12 Appendix V includes selected requirements that Boeing established before
the flight test to evaluate sensor performance and the actual sensor
performance characteristics that Boeing and TRW discussed in the report.

was based on tests of the software using about one-third of the target
signals collected during Integrated Flight Test 1A. The contractors also
noted that TRW reduced the software's reference data13 so that it would
correspond to the collected target signals being analyzed. Project office
and Nichols Research officials said that in late August 1997, the
contractors orally communicated to them all problems and limitations that
were subsequently described in the December 1997 briefing and the April 1998
addendum. However, neither project officials nor contractors could provide
us with documentation of these communications.

Although the contractors reported the test's key results and limitations,
they described the results using some terms that were not defined. For
example, one written report characterized the test as a "success" and the
sensor's performance as "excellent." We found that the information in the
contractors' reports, in total, enabled officials in the Ground Based
Interceptor Project Management Office and Nichols Research to understand the
key results and limitations of the test. However, because such terms are
qualitative and subjective rather than quantitative and objective, their use
increased the likelihood that test results would be interpreted in different
ways and might even be misunderstood. As part of our ongoing review of
missile defense testing, we are examining the need for improvements in test
reporting.

Appendix I provides details on the test and the information disclosed.

Evaluations of TRW's Two groups-Nichols Research Corporation and the Phase
One

Engineering Team- evaluated TRW's basic discrimination software.
Discrimination Nichols evaluated the software by testing it against
simulated warheads Software and decoys similar to those that the contractors
were directed to design

their software to handle. The evaluation concluded that although the

software had some weaknesses, it met performance requirements

13 Reference data are a collection of predicted characteristics, or
features, that target objects are expected to display during flight. The
software identifies the warhead from the decoys by comparing the features
displayed by the different target objects to the reference data.

established by Boeing in nearly all cases.14 However, Nichols explained that
the software was successful because the simulated threat was relatively
simple. Nichols said that TRW's software was highly dependent on prior
knowledge about the threat and that the test conditions that Nichols'
engineers established for the evaluation included providing perfect
knowledge of the features that the simulated warhead and decoys would
display during the test.

Nichols' evaluation was limited because it did not test TRW's software using
actual flight data from Integrated Flight Test 1A. Nichols told us that it
had planned to assess the software's performance using real target signals
collected during Integrated Flight Test 1A, but did not do so because
resources were limited. Because it did not perform this assessment, Nichols
cannot be said to have definitively proved or disproved TRW's claim that its
software discriminated the mock warhead from decoys using data collected
from Integrated Flight Test 1A.

The Phase One Engineering Team was tasked by the National Missile Defense
Joint Program Office to assess the performance of TRW's software and to
complete the assessment within 2 months using available data. The team's
methodology included determining if TRW's software was based on sound
mathematical, engineering, and scientific principles and testing the
software's critical modules using data from Integrated Flight Test 1A.

The team reported that although the software had weaknesses, it was well
designed and worked properly, with only some changes needed to increase the
robustness of the discrimination function. Further, the team reported that
the results of its test of the software using Integrated Flight Test 1A data
produced essentially the same results as those reported by TRW. Based on its
analysis, team members predicted that the software would perform
successfully in a future intercept test if target objects deployed as
expected.

14 The Ground Based Interceptor Project Management Office identified the
precision (expressed as a probability) with which the exoatmospheric kill
vehicle is expected to destroy a warhead with a single shot. To ensure that
the kill vehicle would meet this requirement, Boeing established lower-level
requirements for each function that affects the kill vehicle's performance,
including the discrimination function. Nichols compared the
contractor-established software discrimination performance requirement to
the software's performance in each simulated scenario.

Because the Phase One Engineering Team did not process the raw data from
Integrated Flight Test 1A or develop its own reference data, the team cannot
be said to have definitively proved or disproved TRW's claim that its
software successfully distinguished the mock warhead from decoys using data
collected from Integrated Flight Test 1A. A team member told us its use of
Boeing- and TRW-provided data was appropriate because the former TRW
employee had not alleged that the contractors tampered with the raw test
data or used inappropriate reference data.

In assessing TRW's Extended Kalman Filter Feature Extractor, both Nichols
and the Phase One Engineering Team tested whether the Filter could be used
to extract an additional feature (key characteristic) from a target object's
signal to help identify that object. Nichols tested the Filter's ability
against a number of simulated target signals and found that it was generally
successful. The Phase One Engineering Team tested the Filter's ability using
the signals of one simulated target and one collected during Integrated
Flight Test 1A. Both groups concluded that the Filter could feasibly provide
additional information about target objects, but neither group's evaluation
allowed it to forecast whether the Filter would improve the basic software's
discrimination capability.

Appendix II provides additional details on the Nichols and Phase One
Engineering Team evaluations.

The Department of Justice relied primarily on scientific reports, but
considered information from two Army legal offices when it determined in
March 1999 that it would not intervene in the false claims lawsuit brought
by the former TRW employee. The scientific reports were prepared by Nichols
Research Corporation and the Phase One Engineering Team. Justice's attorneys
said they also considered an opinion of the Army Space and Missile Defense
Command's legal office that said it did not consider vouchers submitted by
Boeing for work performed by its subcontractor, TRW, as being false claims.
In addition, the attorneys said a recommendation from the Army Legal
Services Agency that Justice not intervene was a factor in their decision.
It is not clear how the Army Legal Services Agency came to that decision as
very little documentation is available and agency officials told us that
they remember very little about the case.

Appendix III provides additional information on factors that were considered
in Justice's decision.

Justice's Decision Not to Join Suit

Steps to Assure Independent and Objective Review by the Phase One
Engineering Team

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

When the National Missile Defense Joint Program Office determined that
another assessment of TRW's software should be undertaken, it tasked an
existing advisory group, known as the Phase One Engineering Team, to conduct
this review. Comprised of various Federally Funded Research and Development
Centers, this group was established in 1988 by the Strategic Defense
Initiative Organization as a mechanism to provide the program office with
access to a continuous, independent, and objective source of technical and
engineering expertise. Since the Federally Funded Research and Development
Centers are authorized, established, and operated for the express purpose of
providing the government with independent and objective advice, program
officials determined that making use of this existing advisory group would
be sufficient to assure an independent and objective review. Program
officials said that they relied upon the centers' adherence to requirements
contained in both the Federal Acquisition Regulation and their contracts and
agreements with their sponsoring federal agencies to assure themselves that
the review team could provide an independent, unbiased look at TRW's
software.

Appendix IV provides a fuller explanation of the steps taken by the National
Missile Defense Joint Program Office to assure itself that the Phase One
Engineering Team would provide an independent and objective review.

In commenting on a draft of this report, the Department of Defense and the
Department of Justice concurred with our findings. The Department of Defense
also suggested technical changes, which we incorporated as appropriate. The
Department of Defense's comments are reprinted in appendix VII. The
Department of Justice provided its concurrence via e-mail and had no
additional comments.

We conducted our review from August 2000 through February 2002 in accordance
with generally accepted government auditing standards. Appendix VI provides
details on our scope and methodology. The National Missile Defense Joint
Program Office's process for releasing documents significantly slowed our
work. For example, the program office took approximately 4 months to release
key documents, such as Nichols Research Corporation's 1996 and 1998
evaluations of the Extended Kalman Filter Feature Extractor and Nichols'
1997 evaluation of TRW's discrimination software. We requested these and
other documents on September 14, 2000, and received them on January 9, 2001.

As arranged with your staff, unless you publicly announce its contents
earlier, we plan no further distribution of this report until 30 days from
its
issue date. At that time, we plan to provide copies of this report to the
Chairmen and Ranking Minority Members of the Senate Committee on
Armed Services; the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee
on Defense; the House Committee on Armed Services; and the House
Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Defense; and the
Secretary of Defense; the Attorney General; and the Director, Missile
Defense Agency. We will make copies available to others upon request.

If you or your staff have any questions concerning this report, please
contact Bob Levin, Director, Acquisition and Sourcing Management, on
(202) 512-4841; Jack Brock, Managing Director, on (202) 512-4841; or
Keith Rhodes, Chief Technologist, on (202) 512-6412. Major contributors to
this report are listed in appendix VIII.

Jack L. Brock, Jr.
Managing Director
Acquisition and Sourcing Management

Keith Rhodes
Chief Technologist
Applied Research and Methods

Appendix I: Disclosure of Flight Test's Key Results and Limitations

Boeing and TRW disclosed the key results and limitations of an early sensor
flight test, known as Integrated Flight Test 1A, to the Ground Based
Interceptor Project Management Office. The contractors included some key
results and limitations in written reports submitted soon after the June
1997 test, but others were not included in written reports until December
1997 or April 1998. However, according to project office and Nichols
officials, all problems and limitations included in the written reports were
communicated orally to the project management office in late August 1997.
The deputy project office manager said his office did not report these
verbal communications to others within the Program Office or the Department
of Defense because the project office was the office within the Department
responsible for the Boeing contract.

One problem that was included in initial reports to program officials was a
malfunctioning cooling mechanism that did not lower the sensor's temperature
to the desired level. Boeing characterized the mechanism's performance as
somewhat below expectations but functioning well enough for the sensor's
operation. We hired experts to determine the extent to which the problem
could affect the sensor's performance. The experts found that the cooling
problem degraded the sensor's performance in a number of ways, but would not
likely result in extreme performance degradation. The experts studied only
how increased noise1 affected the sensor's performance regarding comparative
strengths of the target signals and the noise (signal to noise ratio). The
experts did not evaluate discrimination performance, which is dependent on
the measurement accuracy of the collected infrared signals. The experts'
findings are discussed in more detail later in this appendix.

The Test Integrated Flight Test 1A, conducted in June 1997, was a test of
the Boeing sensor-a highly sensitive, compact, infrared device, consisting
of an array of silicon detectors, that is normally mounted on the
exoatmospheric kill vehicle. However, in this test, a surrogate launch
vehicle carried the sensor above the earth's atmosphere to view a cluster of
target objects that included a mock warhead and various decoys. When the
sensor detected the target cluster, its silicon detectors began to make
precise measurements of the infrared radiation emitted by the target
objects. Over the tens of seconds that the target objects were within its
field of view, the sensor continuously converted the infrared radiation into
an electrical

1 Noise is undesirable electronic energy from sources other than the target
objects.

Appendix I: Disclosure of Flight Test's Key Results and Limitations

current, or signal, proportional to the amount of energy collected by the
detectors. The sensor then digitized the signal (converted the signals into
numerical values), completed a preliminary part of the planned signal
processing, and formatted the signal so that it could be transmitted via a
data link to a recorder on the ground. After the test, Boeing processed the
signals further2 and formatted them so that TRW could input the signals into
its discrimination software to assess its capability to distinguish the mock
warhead from decoys. In post-flight ground testing, the software analyzed
the processed data and identified the key characteristics, or features, of
each signal. The software then compared the features it extracted to the
expected features of various types of target objects. Based on this
comparison, the software ranked each item according to its likelihood of
being the mock warhead. TRW reported that the highest-ranked object was the
mock warhead.

The primary objective of Integrated Flight Test 1A was to reduce risk in
future flight tests. Specifically, the test was designed to determine if the
sensor could operate in space; to examine the extent to which the sensor
could detect small differences in infrared emissions; to determine if the
sensor was accurately calibrated; and to collect target signature3 data for
post-mission discrimination analysis. In addition, Boeing established
quantitative requirements for the test.4 For example, the sensor was
expected to acquire the target objects at a specified distance. According to
a Nichols' engineer, Boeing established these requirements to ensure that
its exoatmospheric kill vehicle, when fully developed, could destroy a
warhead with the single shot precision (expressed as a probability) required
by the Ground Based Interceptor Project Management Office. The engineer said
that in Integrated Flight Test 1A, Boeing planned to measure its sensor's
performance against these lower-level requirements so that Boeing engineers
could determine which sensor elements, including the software, required
further refinement. However, the engineer told us that because of the
various sensor problems, of which the contractor and project office were
aware, Boeing determined before the test that it would not use most of these
requirements to judge the sensor's performance. (Although Boeing did not
judge the performance of its sensor against the

2 The signal processing that Boeing completed after the test will be
completed onboard the exoatmospheric kill vehicle in an operational system.

3 A target object's signature is the set of infrared signals emitted by the
target.

4 These requirements were established by the contractor and were not imposed
by the government.

Appendix I: Disclosure of Flight Test's Key Results and Limitations

requirements as it originally planned, Boeing did, in some cases, report the
sensor's performance in terms of these requirements. For a summary of
selected test requirements and the sensor's performance as reported by
Boeing and TRW in their August 22, 1997, report, see app. V.)

Reported  Key  Results  Table  1 provides  details  on the  key results  and
limitations  of  Integrated Flight  Test  1A that  contractors disclosed  in
various written reports and

and Limitations briefing charts.

Table 1: What and When Key Results and Limitations Were Included in
Contractors' Written Reports

  August 13, 1997,  August 22, 1997,        December 11, 1997,
      Report        Report                           Briefing   April 1, 1998, Report
 Detected deployed  Detected deployed                         Failure of gap-filling
      targets       targets             High false alarm rate modulea
   Target signals      Target signals   Sensor did not cool to  Target signals collected
     collected           collected      desired                                  during
                                                               selected portion of the
                                             temperature               flight
                                                                        timeline used in
                                                                          assessment of
                                                               discrimination software

Discrimination software distinguished mock warhead from decoys
Discrimination software distinguished mock warhead from decoys Software
confidence factor remained small for two target objects Selected reference
data used in assessment of discrimination software Excellent performance of
sensor payload Sensor had a lower than expected probability of detection
Power supply caused noisy target signals Software significantly increased
rank of one target object toward the end of the flight Sensor did not cool
to desired temperature In-flight calibration of sensor was inconsistent

High false alarm rate

Slow turn-around of launch vehicle caused data loss

aTRW designed a gap-filling module for its discrimination software to
replace missing or noisy portions of collected and simulated target signals.

Although the contractors disclosed the key results and limitations of the
flight test in written reports and in discussions, the written reports
described the results using some terms that were not defined. For example,
in their August 22, 1997, report, Boeing and TRW described Integrated Flight
Test 1A as a "success" and the performance of the Boeing sensor as
"excellent." We asked the contractors to explain their use of these terms.
We asked Boeing, for example, why it characterized its sensor's performance
as "excellent" when the sensor's silicon detector array did not cool to the
desired temperature, the sensor's power supply created excess noise, and the
sensor detected numerous false targets. Boeing said that even though the
silicon detector array operated at temperatures 20 to 30 percent higher than
desired, the sensor produced

Appendix I: Disclosure of Flight Test's Key Results and Limitations

useful data. Officials said they knew of no other sensor that would be
capable of producing any useful data under those conditions. Boeing
officials went on to say that the sensor continuously produced usable, and,
much of the time, excellent data in "real-time" during flight. In addition,
officials said the sensor component responsible for suppressing background
noise in the silicon detector array performed perfectly in space and the
silicon detectors collected data in more than one wave band. Boeing
concluded that the sensor's performance allowed the test to meet all mission
objectives.

Based on our review of the reports and discussions with officials in the
Ground Based Interceptor Project Management Office and Nichols Research, we
found that the contractors' reports, in total, contained information for
those officials to understand the key results and limitations of the test.
However, because terms such as "success" and "excellent" are qualitative and
subjective rather than quantitative and objective, we believe their use
increases the likelihood that test results would be interpreted in different
ways and could even be misunderstood. As part of our ongoing review of
missile defense testing, we are examining the need for improvements in test
reporting.

The August 13 Report This report, sometimes referred to as the 45-day
report, was a series of briefing charts. In it, contractors reported that
Integrated Flight Test 1A achieved its principal objectives of reducing
risks for subsequent flight tests, demonstrating the performance of the
exoatmospheric kill vehicle's sensor, and collecting target signature data.
In addition, the report stated that TRW's software successfully
distinguished a mock warhead from accompanying decoys.5

                            The August 22 Report

The August 22 report, known as the 60-day report, was a lengthy document
that disclosed much more than the August 13 report. As discussed in more
detail below, the report explained that some sensor abnormalities were
observed during the test, that some signals collected from the target

5 Boeing and TRW reported that the original test objectives did not include
a test of TRW's discrimination software. However, program officials decided
immediately prior to the test that it offered an excellent opportunity to
assess the software's capability even though post-processing tools needed to
assess the software were not yet available and would need rapid development
after Integrated Flight Test 1A.

    Appendix I: Disclosure of Flight Test's Key Results and Limitations

Some Sensor Abnormalities Were Observed During the Test

objects were degraded, that the launch vehicle carrying the sensor into
space adversely affected the sensor's ability to collect target signals, and
that the sensor sometimes detected targets where there were none. These
problems were all noted in the body of the report, but the report summary
stated that review and analysis subsequent to the test confirmed the
"excellent" performance and nominal operation of all sensor subsystems.

Boeing disclosed in the report that sensor abnormalities were observed
during the test and that the sensor experienced a higher than expected false
alarm rate. These abnormalities were (1) a cooling mechanism that did not
bring the sensor's silicon detectors to the intended operating temperature,
(2) a power supply unit6 that created excess noise, and (3) software that
did not function as designed because of the slow turnaround of the surrogate
launch vehicle.

In the report's summary, Boeing characterized the cooling mechanism's
performance as somewhat below expectations but functioning well enough for
the sensor's operation. In the body of the report, Boeing said that the
fluctuations in temperature could lead to an apparent decrease in sensor
performance. Additionally, Boeing engineers told us that the cooling
mechanism's failure to bring the silicon detector array to the required
temperature caused the detectors to be noisy. Because the discrimination
software identifies objects as a warhead or a decoy by comparing the
features of a target's signal with those it expects a warhead or decoy to
display, a noisy signal may confuse the software. Boeing and TRW engineers
said that they and program office officials were aware that there was a
problem with the sensor's cooling mechanism before the test was conducted.
However, Boeing believed that the sensor would perform adequately at higher
temperatures. According to contractor documents, the sensor did not perform
as well as expected, and some target signals were degraded more than
anticipated. Boeing disclosed in the report that sensor abnormalities were
observed during the test and that the sensor experienced a higher than
expected false alarm rate. These abnormalities were (1) a cooling mechanism
that did not bring the sensor's silicon detectors to the intended operating
temperature, (2) a power supply unit that created excess noise, and (3)
software that did not function as designed because of the slow turnaround of
the surrogate launch vehicle.

6  The  power supply  unit  is  designed to  power  the sensor's  electronic
components.

Appendix I: Disclosure of Flight Test's Key Results and Limitations

Power Supply Creates Noise

Payload Launch Vehicle Affected Software's Ability to Remove Background
Noise

In the report's summary, Boeing characterized the cooling mechanism's
performance as somewhat below expectations but functioning well enough for
the sensor's operation. In the body of the report, Boeing said that the
fluctuations in temperature could lead to an apparent decrease in sensor
performance. Additionally, Boeing engineers told us that the cooling
mechanism's failure to bring the silicon detector array to the required
temperature caused the detectors to be noisy. Because the discrimination
software identifies objects as a warhead or a decoy by comparing the
features of a target's signal with those it expects a warhead or decoy to
display, a noisy signal may confuse the software. Boeing and TRW engineers
said that they and program office officials were aware that there was a
problem with the sensor's cooling mechanism before the test was conducted.
However, Boeing believed that the sensor would perform adequately at higher
temperatures. According to contractor documents, the sensor did not perform
as well as expected, and some target signals were degraded more than
anticipated.

The report also referred to a problem with the sensor's power supply unit
and its effect on target signals. An expert we hired to evaluate the
sensor's performance at higher than expected temperatures found that the
power supply, rather than the temperature, was the primary cause of excess
noise early in the sensor's flight. Boeing engineers told us that they were
aware that the power supply was noisy before the test, but, as shown by the
test, it was worse than expected.

The report explained that, as expected before the flight, the slow
turnaround of the massive launch vehicle on which the sensor was mounted in
Integrated Flight Test 1A caused the loss of some target signals. Engineers
explained to us that the sensor would eventually be mounted on the lighter,
more agile exoatmospheric kill vehicle, which would move back and forth to
detect objects that did not initially appear in the sensor's field of view.
The engineers said that Boeing designed software that takes into account the
kill vehicle's normal motion to remove the background noise, but the
software's effectiveness depended on the fast movement of the kill vehicle.
Boeing engineers told us that, because of the slow turnaround of the launch
vehicle used in the test, the target signals detected during the turnaround
were particularly noisy and the software sometimes removed not only the
noise but the entire signal as well.

Appendix I: Disclosure of Flight Test's Key Results and Limitations

Sensor Sometimes Detected False Targets

The report mentioned that the sensor experienced more false alarms than
expected. A false alarm is a detection of a target that is not there.
According to the experts we hired, during Integrated Flight Test 1A, the
Boeing sensor often mistakenly identified noise produced by the power supply
as signals from actual target objects. In a fully automated discrimination
software program, a high false alarm rate could overwhelm the tracking
software. Because the post-flight processing tools were not fully developed
at the time of the August 13 and August 22, 1997, reports, Boeing did not
rely upon a fully automated tracking system when it processed the Integrated
Flight Test 1A data. Instead, a Boeing engineer manually tracked the target
objects. The contractors realized, and reported to the Ground Based
Interceptor Project Management Office, that numerous false alarms could
cause problems in future flight tests, and they identified software changes
to reduce their occurrence.

December 11 Briefing

Contractors Report Further on False Alarms

On December 11, 1997, Boeing and TRW briefed officials from the Ground Based
Interceptor Project Management Office and one of its support contractors on
various anomalies observed during Integrated Flight Test 1A. The
contractors' briefing charts explained the effect the anomalies could have
on Integrated Flight Test 3, the first planned intercept test for the Boeing
exoatmospheric kill vehicle, identified potential causes of the anomalies,
and summarized the solutions to mitigate their effect. While some of the
anomalies included in the December 11 briefing charts were referred to in
the August 13 and August 22 reports, others were being reported in writing
for the first time.

The anomalies referenced in the briefing charts included the sensor's high
false alarm rate, the silicon detector array's higher-than-expected
temperature, the software's low confidence factor that it had correctly
identified two target objects correctly, the sensor's lower than expected
probability of detection, and the software's elevation in rank of one target
object toward the end of the test. In addition, the charts showed that an
in-flight attempt to calibrate the sensor was inconsistent. According to the
charts, actions to prevent similar anomalies from occurring or impacting
Integrated Flight Test 3 had in most cases already been implemented or were
under way.

The contractors again recognized that a large number of false alarms
occurred during Integrated Flight Test 1A. According to the briefing charts,
false alarms occurred during the slow turnarounds of the surrogate launch
vehicle. Additionally, the contractors hypothesized that some false alarms
resulted from space-ionizing events. By December 11, engineers

Appendix I: Disclosure of Flight Test's Key Results and Limitations

Briefing Charts Include Observations on Higher Detector Array Temperature

Some Software Confidence Factors Lower Than Expected

Sensor's Probability of Detection Is Lower Than Expected

Software Increases the Rank of One Object Near Test's End

In-Flight Calibration Was Inconsistent

had identified solutions to reduce the number of false alarms in future
tests.

As they had in the August 22, 1997, report, the contractors recognized that
the silicon detector array did not cool properly during Integrated Flight
Test 1A. The contractors reported that higher silicon detector array
temperatures could cause noisy signals that would adversely impact the
detector array's ability to estimate the infrared intensity of observed
objects. Efforts to eliminate the impact of the higher temperatures, should
they occur in future tests, were on-going at the time of the briefing.

Contractors observed that the confidence factor produced by the software was
small for two target objects. The software equation that makes a
determination as to how confident the software should be to identify a
target object correctly, did not work properly for the large balloon or
multiple-service launch vehicle. Corrections to the equation had been made
by the time of the briefing.

The charts state that the Integrated Flight Test 1A sensor had a lower than
anticipated probability of detection and a high false alarm rate. Because a
part of the tracking, fusion, and discrimination software was designed for a
sensor with a high probability of detection and a low false alarm rate, the
software did not function optimally and needed revision. Changes to prevent
this from happening in future flight tests were under way.

The briefing charts showed that TRW's software significantly increased the
rank of one target object just before target objects began to leave the
sensor's field of view. Although a later Integrated Flight Test 1A report
stated the mock warhead was consistently ranked as the most likely target,
the charts show that if in Integrated Flight Test 3 the same object's rank
began to increase, the software could select the object as the intercept
target. In the briefing charts, the contractors reported that TRW made a
software change in the model that is used to generate reference data. When
reference data was generated with the software change, the importance of the
mock warhead was increased, and it was selected as the target. Tests of the
software change were in progress as of December 11.

The Boeing sensor measures the infrared emissions of target objects by
converting the collected signals into intensity with the help of calibration
data obtained from the sensor prior to flight. However, the sensor was not
calibrated at the higher temperature range that was experienced during
Integrated Flight Test 1A. To remedy the problem, the sensor viewed a

Appendix I: Disclosure of Flight Test's Key Results and Limitations

star with known infrared emissions. The measurement of the star's intensity
was to have helped fill the gaps in calibration data that was essential to
making accurate measurements of the target object signals. Boeing disclosed
that the corrections based on the star calibration were inconsistent and did
not improve the match of calculated and measured target signatures. Boeing
subsequently told us that the star calibration corrections were effective
for one of the wavelength bands, but not for another, and that the
inconsistency referred to in the briefing charts was in how these bands
behaved at temperatures above the intended operating range. Efforts to find
and implement solutions were in progress.

April 1, 1998, Report

Gap-Filling Software Module Did Not Perform As Designed

Assessment Uses Selected Target Signals

On April 1, 1998, Boeing submitted a revised addendum to replace an addendum
that had accompanied the August 22, 1997, report. This revised addendum was
prepared in response to comments and questions submitted by officials from
the Ground Based Interceptor Project Management Office, Nichols Research
Corporation, and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service concerning the
August 22 report. In this addendum, the contractors referred in writing to
three problems and limitations that had not been addressed in earlier
written test reports or the December 11 briefing. Contractors noted that a
gap-filling module, which was designed to replace noisy or missing signals,
did not operate as designed. They also disclosed that TRW's analysis of its
discrimination software used target signals collected during a selected
portion of the flight timeline and used a portion of the Integrated Flight
Test 1A reference data that corresponded to this same timeline.

The April 1 addendum reported that a gap-filling module that was designed to
replace portions of noisy or missing target signals with expected signal
values did not operate as designed. TRW officials told us that the module's
replacement values were too conservative and resulted in a poor match
between collected signals and the signals the software expected the target
objects to display.

The April 1, 1998, addendum also disclosed that the August 13 and August 22
reports, in which TRW conveyed that its software successfully distinguished
the mock warhead from decoys, were based on tests of the software using
about one-third of the target signals collected during Integrated Flight
Test 1A. We talked to TRW officials who told us that Boeing provided several
data sets to TRW, including the full data set. The officials said that
Boeing provided target signals from the entire timeline

Appendix I: Disclosure of Flight Test's Key Results and Limitations

to a TRW office that was developing a prototype version of the
exoatmospheric kill vehicle's tracking, fusion, and discrimination
software,7 which was not yet operational. However, TRW representatives said
that the test bed version of the software that TRW was using so that it
could submit its analysis within 60 days of Integrated Flight Test 1A could
not process the full data set. The officials said that shortly before the
August 22 report was issued, the prototype version of the tracking, fusion,
and discrimination software became functional and engineers were able to use
the software to assess the expanded set of target signals. According to the
officials, this assessment also resulted in the software's selecting the
mock warhead as the most likely target. In our review of the August 22
report, we found no analysis of the expanded set of target signals. The
April 1, 1998, report, did include an analysis of a few additional seconds
of data collected near the end of Integrated Flight Test 1A, but did not
include an analysis of target signals collected at the beginning of the
flight.

Most of the signals that were excluded from TRW's discrimination analysis
were collected during the early part of the flight, when the sensor's
temperature was fluctuating. TRW told us that their software was designed to
drop a target object's track if the tracking portion of the software
received no data updates for a defined period. This design feature was meant
to reduce false tracks that the software might establish if the sensor
detected targets where there were none. In Integrated Flight Test 1A, the
fluctuation of the sensor's temperature caused the loss of target signals.
TRW engineers said that Boeing recognized that this interruption would cause
TRW's software to stop tracking all target objects and restart the
discrimination process. Therefore, Boeing focused its efforts on

7 The purpose of TRW's tracking, fusion, and discrimination software, which
was being designed to operate on-board Boeing's exoatmospheric kill vehicle,
was to record the positions of the target objects as they moved through
space, fuse information about the objects collected by ground-based radar
with data collected by the kill vehicle's infrared sensor, and discriminate
the warhead from decoys. The software's tracking function was not
operational when the project office asked the contractors to determine the
software's ability to discriminate. As a result, Boeing hand-tracked the
target objects so that TRW could use test bed discrimination software, which
is almost identical to the discrimination portion of the operational version
of the tracking, fusion, and discrimination software, to assess the
discrimination capability.

Appendix I: Disclosure of Flight Test's Key Results and Limitations

             Corresponding Portions of Reference Data Excluded

processing those target signals that were collected after the sensor's
temperature stabilized and signals were collected continuously.8

Some signals collected during the last seconds of the sensor's flight were
also excluded. The former TRW employee alleged that these latter signals
were excluded because during this time a decoy was selected as the target.
The Phase One Engineering Team cited one explanation for the exclusion of
the signals. The team said that TRW stopped using data when objects began
leaving the sensor's field of view. Our review did not confirm this
explanation. We reviewed the target intensities derived from the infrared
frames covering that period and found that several seconds of data were
excluded before objects began to leave the field of view. Boeing officials
gave us another explanation. They said that target signals collected during
the last few seconds of the flight were streaking, or blurring, because the
sensor was viewing the target objects as it flew by them. Boeing told us
that streaking would not occur in an intercept flight because the kill
vehicle would have continued to approach the target objects. We could not
confirm that the test of TRW's discrimination software, as explained in the
August 22, 1997, report, included all target signals that did not streak. We
noted that the April 1, 1998, addendum shows that TRW analyzed several more
seconds of target signals than is shown in the August 22, 1997, report. It
was in these additional seconds that the software began to increase the rank
of one decoy as it assessed which target object was most likely the mock
warhead. However, the April 1, 1998, addendum also shows that even though
the decoy's rank increased the software continued to rank the mock warhead
as the most likely target. But, because not all of the Integrated Flight
Test 1A timeline was presented in the April 1 addendum, we could not
determine whether any portion of the excluded timeline might have been
useful data and if there were additional seconds of useful data whether a
target object other than the mock warhead might have been ranked as the most
likely target.

The April 1 addendum also documented that portions of the reference data
developed for Integrated Flight Test 1A were also excluded from the

8 When the Ground Based Interceptor Project Management Office asked Boeing
to assess the discrimination capability of its sensor's software, TRW's
prototype tracking, fusion, and discrimination software was not operational.
To perform the requested assessment, TRW used test-bed discrimination
software that was almost identical to the discrimination software that TRW
engineers designed for the prototype tracking, fusion, and discrimination
software. Because the test-bed software did not have the ability to track
targets, Boeing performed the tracking function and provided the tracked
signals to TRW.

Appendix I: Disclosure of Flight Test's Key Results and Limitations

Information Provided Verbally to Project Office

Effect of Cooling Failure on Sensor's Performance

discrimination analysis. Nichols and project office officials told us the
software identifies the various target objects by comparing the target
signals collected from each object at a given point in their flight to the
target signals it expects each object to display at that same point in the
flight. Therefore, when target signals collected during a portion of the
flight timeline are excluded, reference data developed for the same portion
of the timeline must be excluded.

Officials in the National Missile Defense Joint Program Office's Ground
Based Interceptor Project Management Office and Nichols Research told us
that soon after Integrated Flight Test 1A the contractors orally disclosed
all of the problems and limitations cited in the December 11, 1997, briefing
and the April 1, 1998, addendum. Contractors made these disclosures to
project office and Nichols Research officials during meetings that were held
to review Integrated Flight Test 1A results sometime in late August 1997.
The project office and contractors could not, however, provide us with
documentation of these disclosures.

The current Ground Based Interceptor Project Management Office deputy
manager said that the problems that contractors discussed with his office
were not specifically communicated to others within the Department of
Defense because his office was the office within the Department responsible
for the Boeing contract. The project office's assessment was that these
problems did not compromise the reported success of the mission, were
similar in nature to problems normally found in initial developmental tests,
and could be easily corrected.

Because we questioned whether Boeing's sensor could collect any usable
target signals if the silicon detector array was not cooled to the desired
temperature, we hired sensor experts at Utah State University's Space
Dynamics Laboratory to determine the extent to which the sub-optimal cooling
degraded the sensor's performance. These experts concluded that the higher
temperature of the silicon detectors degraded the sensor's performance in a
number of ways, but did not result in extreme degradation. For example, the
experts said the higher temperature reduced by approximately 7 percent the
distance at which the sensor could detect targets. The experts also said
that the rapid temperature fluctuation at the beginning and at the end of
data acquisition contributed to the number of times that the sensor detected
a false target. However, the experts said the major cause of the false
alarms was the power supply

Appendix I: Disclosure of Flight Test's Key Results and Limitations

noise that contaminated the electrical signals generated by the sensor in
response to the infrared energy. When the sensor signals were processed
after Integrated Flight Test 1A, the noise appeared as objects, but they
were actually false alarms.

Additionally, the experts said that the precision with which the sensor
could estimate the infrared energy emanating from an object based on the
electrical signal produced by the energy was especially degraded in one of
the sensor's two infrared wave bands. In their report, the experts said that
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory analyzed the
precision with which the Boeing sensor could measure infrared radiation and
found large errors in measurement accuracy. The Utah State experts said that
their determination that the sensor's measurement capability was degraded in
one infrared wave band might partially explain the errors found by Lincoln
Laboratory.

Although Boeing's sensor did not cool to the desired temperature during
Integrated Flight Test 1A, the experts found that an obstruction in gas flow
rather than the sensor's design was at fault. These experts said the
sensor's cooling mechanism was properly designed and Boeing's sensor design
was sound.

Appendix II: Evaluations of TRW's Software and a Planned Enhancement

Nichols Research Corporation and the Phase One Engineering Team tested TRW's
discrimination software and a planned enhancement to that software, known as
the Extended Kalman Filter Feature Extractor. Nichols concluded that
although it had weaknesses, the discrimination software met performance
requirements established by Boeing when it was tested against a simple
threat and given near perfect knowledge about the key characteristics, or
features, that the target objects would display during flight. The Phase One
Engineering Team reported that despite some weaknesses, TRW's discrimination
software was well designed and worked properly. Like Nichols, the team found
that the software's performance was dependent upon prior knowledge of the
target objects. Because Nichols did not test the software's capability using
data collected from Integrated Flight Test 1A and the Phase One Engineering
Team did not process the raw data from Integrated Flight Test 1A or develop
its own reference data, neither group can be said to have definitively
proved or disproved TRW's claim that its software successfully identified
the mock warhead from decoys using data collected from Integrated Flight
Test 1A. From their assessments of TRW's Extended Kalman Filter Feature
Extractor, both groups concluded that it was feasible that the Filter could
provide additional information about target objects, but neither group
determined to what extent the Filter would improve the software's
discrimination performance.

Nichols Research Corporation evaluated TRW's discrimination software to
determine if it met performance requirements developed by Boeing. Boeing
established discrimination performance requirements to ensure that its
exoatmospheric kill vehicle, when fully developed, could destroy a warhead
with the single shot precision (expressed as a probability) required by the
Ground Based Interceptor Project Management Office.1 The kill vehicle must
perform a number of functions successfully to accurately hit-to-kill its
target, such as acquiring the target cluster, discriminating the warhead
from other objects, and diverting to hit the warhead. Boeing believed that
if it met the performance requirements that it established for each
function, including the discrimination function, the exoatmospheric kill
vehicle should meet the required single shot probability of kill.

Nichols Evaluation of TRW's Discrimination Software

1 The contractors can prove they have achieved this number only after
numerous engagements. Because tests are expensive, the Department expects
the contractors to use simulations to demonstrate the required precision.
Actual flight tests are used to prove the reliability of the simulations.

    Appendix II: Evaluations of TRW's Software and a Planned Enhancement

                            Nichols' Methodology

To determine if TRW's software performed as required, Nichols' engineers
obtained a copy of TRW's software; verified that the software was based on
sound scientific and engineering principles; validated that it operated as
designed; and tested its performance in 48 simulated scenarios that included
countermeasures, such as decoys, that the system might encounter before
2010.

Nichols validated the software by obtaining a copy of the actual source code
from TRW and installing the software in a Nichols computer. Engineers then
examined the code line-by-line; verified its logic, data flow, and input and
output; and determined that the software accurately reflected TRW's baseline
design.

Nichols next verified that the software performed exactly as reported by
TRW. Engineers ran 13 TRW-provided test cases through the software and
compared the results to those reported by TRW. Nichols reported that their
results were generally consistent with TRW's results with only minor
performance differences in a few cases.

After analyzing the 13 reference cases, Nichols generated additional test
cases by simulating a wide-range of enemy missiles with countermeasures that
included decoys. Including the 13 reference cases, Nichols analyzed the
software's performance in a total of 48 test scenarios.

                            Nichols' Key Results

Because the software performed successfully in 45 of 48 simulated test
cases, Nichols concluded that the system met the performance requirements
established by Boeing. However, Nichols explained that the software met its
requirement because it was tested against a simple threat. In addition,
Nichols said that the software was given nearly perfect knowledge of the
features the simulated warhead and any decoys included in each test would
display.

* Nichols found anomalies when it simulated the performance of TRW's
prevented the software from meeting its performance requirement in 3 of the
48 cases. First, Nichols found that a software module did not work properly.
(TRW used this gap-filling software module to replace missing or noisy
target signals.) Second, Nichols found that the software's target selection
logic did not always work well. As a result, the probability that the
software would select the simulated warhead as the target was lower than
required in three of the test cases.

    Appendix II: Evaluations of TRW's Software and a Planned Enhancement

* Nichols reported inconsistencies in TRW's software code. Engineers found
that in some cases the software did not extract one particular feature from
the target signals, and, in other cases, the results improved substantially
when this feature was excluded. The Nichols report warned that in cases
where this feature was the most important in the discrimination process, the
software's performance could be significantly degraded.

* Evaluation Parameters. In its 1997 report, Nichols cautioned that TRW's
software met performance requirements because the countermeasures included
in the 48 tests were relatively simple. Nichols' testing also assumed
perfect knowledge about the warhead and decoys included in the simulations.
Engineers told us that all 48 test cases were constructed to test the
software against the simple threats that the Department of Defense believed
"nations of concern" might deploy before 2010. The engineers said that their
evaluation did not include tests of the software against the number and type
of decoys deployed in Integrated Flight Test 1A because that threat cluster
was more complex than the simple threat that contractors were required to
design their software to handle. In addition, Nichols reported that in all
48 test cases perfect reference data was used-that is, the software was told
what features the warhead and decoys would display during the simulations.
Nichols engineers said TRW's software is sensitive to prior knowledge about
the threat and the Ground Based Interceptor Project Management Office was
aware of this aspect of TRW's design.

Limitation in Nichols' Evaluation

Nichols' evaluation was limited because it did not test TRW's software using
actual flight data from Integrated Flight Test 1A. Nichols told us that in
addition to testing TRW's discrimination software using simulated data it
had also planned to assess the software's performance using real target
signals collected during Integrated Flight Test 1A. Because it did not
perform this assessment, Nichols can not be said to have definitively proved
or disproved TRW's claim that its software discriminated the mock warhead
from decoys using data collected from Integrated Flight Test 1A. Officials
said they did not complete this aspect of the evaluation because their
resources were limited. However, we noted that Nichols' engineers had
already verified TRW's software and obtained the raw target signals
collected during Integrated Flight Test 1A. These engineers told us that
this assessment could be done within two weeks after Nichols received all
required information. (Nichols said it did not have some needed
information.)

Appendix II: Evaluations of TRW's Software and a Planned Enhancement

Phase One Engineering Team's Evaluation

In 1998, the National Missile Defense Joint Program Office asked the Phase
One Engineering Team to conduct an assessment, using available data, of
TRW's discrimination software, even though Nichols Research Corporation had
already concluded that it met the requirements established by Boeing.2 The
program office asked for the second evaluation because the Defense Criminal
Investigative Service lead investigator expressed concern about the ability
of Nichols to provide a truly objective evaluation.

The Phase One Engineering Team developed a methodology to (1) determine if
TRW's software was consistent with scientific, mathematical, and engineering
principles; (2) determine whether TRW accurately reported that its software
successfully discriminated a mock warhead from decoys using data collected
from Integrated Flight Test 1A; and (3) predict the performance of TRW's
basic discrimination software against Integrated Flight Test 3 scenarios.
The key results of the team's evaluation were that the software was well
designed; the contractors accurately reported the results of Integrated
Flight Test 1A; and the software would likely perform successfully in
Integrated Flight Test 3. The primary limitation was that the team used
Boeing- and TRW-processed target data and TRW-developed reference data in
determining the accuracy of TRW reports for Integrated Flight Test 1A.

Phase One Engineering Team's Methodology

The team began its work by assuring itself that TRW's discrimination
software was based on sound scientific, engineering, and mathematical
principles and that those principles had been correctly implemented. It did
this primarily by studying technical documents provided by the contractors
and the program office. Next, the team began to look at the software's
performance using Integrated Flight Test 1A data. The team studied TRW's
August 13 and August 22, 1997, test reports to learn more about
discrepancies that the Defense Criminal Investigative Service said it found
in these reports. Team members also received briefings from the

2 The Ground Based Interceptor Project Management Office identified the
precision (expressed as a probability) with which the exoatmospheric kill
vehicle is expected to destroy a warhead with a single shot. To ensure that
the kill vehicle would meet this requirement, Boeing established lower-level
requirements for each function that affects the kill vehicle's performance,
including the discrimination function. Nichols compared the
contractor-established software discrimination performance requirement to
the software's performance in simulated scenarios.

Appendix II: Evaluations of TRW's Software and a Planned Enhancement

Defense Criminal Investigative Service, Boeing, TRW, and Nichols Research
Corporation.

Team members told us that they did not replicate TRW's software in total.
Instead, the team emulated critical functions of TRW's discrimination
software and tested those functions using data collected during Integrated
Flight Test 1A. To test the ability of TRW's software to extract the
features of each target object's signal, the team designed a software
routine that mirrored TRW's feature-extraction design. Unlike Nichols, the
team did not obtain target signals collected during the test and then
process those signals. Rather, the team received Integrated Flight Test 1A
target signals that had been processed by Boeing and then further processed
by TRW. These signals represented about one-third of the collected signals.
Team members input the TRW-supplied target signals into the team's
feature-extraction software routine and extracted two features from each
target signal. The team then compared the extracted features to TRW's
reports on these same features and concluded that TRW's software-extraction
process worked as reported by TRW. Next, the team acquired the results of
200 of the 1,000 simulations that TRW had run to determine the features that
target objects deployed in Integrated Flight Test 1A would likely display.3
Using these results, team members developed reference data that the software
could compare to the features extracted from Integrated Flight Test 1A
target signals. Finally, the team wrote software that ranked the different
observed target objects in terms of the probability that each was the mock
warhead. The results produced by the team's software were then compared to
TRW's reported results.

The team did not perform any additional analysis to predict the performance
of the Boeing sensor and its software in Integrated Flight Test 3. Instead,
the team used the knowledge that it gained from its assessment of the
software's performance using Integrated Flight Test 1A data to estimate the
software's performance in the third flight test.

3 The Phase One Engineering Team reported that TRW ran 1,000 simulations to
determine the reference data for Integrated flight Test 1A, but the Team
received the results of only 200 simulations. TRW engineers said this was
most likely to save time. Also, the engineers said that the only effect of
developing reference data from 200 simulations rather than 1,000 simulations
is that confidence in the reference data drops from 98 percent to
approximately 96 percent.

Appendix II: Evaluations of TRW's Software and a Planned Enhancement

The Phase One Engineering Team's Key Results

Weaknesses in TRW's Software

Accuracy of Contractors' Integrated Flight Test 1A Reports

In its report published on January 25, 1999, the Phase One Engineering Team
reported that even though it noted some weaknesses, TRW's discrimination
software was well designed and worked properly, with only some refinement or
redesign needed to increase the robustness of the discrimination function.
In addition, the team reported that its test of the software using data from
Integrated Flight Test 1A produced essentially the same results as those
reported by TRW. The team also predicted that the Boeing sensor and its
software would perform well in Integrated Flight Test 3 if target objects
deployed as expected.

The team's assessment identified some software weaknesses. First, the team
reported that TRW's use of a software module to replace missing or noisy
target signals was not effective and could actually hurt rather than help
the performance of the discrimination software. Second, the Phase One
Engineering Team pointed out that while TRW proposed extracting several
features from each target-object signal, only a few of the features could be
used.

The Phase One Engineering Team also reported that it found TRW's software to
be fragile because the software was unlikely to operate effectively if the
reference data-or expected target signals-did not closely match the signals
that the sensor collected from deployed target objects. The team warned that
the software's performance could degrade significantly if incorrect
reference data were loaded into the software. Because developing good
reference data is dependent upon having the correct information about target
characteristics, sensor-to-target geometry, and engagement timelines,
unexpected targets might challenge the software. The team suggested that
very good knowledge about all of these parameters might not always be
available.

The Phase One Engineering Team reported that the results of its evaluation
using Integrated Flight Test 1A data supported TRW's claim that in
post-flight analysis its software accurately distinguished a mock warhead
from decoys. The report stated that TRW explained why there were differences
in the discrimination analysis included in the August 13, 1997, Integrated
Flight Test 1A test report and that included in the August 22, 1997, report.
According to the report, one difference was that TRW mislabeled a chart in
the August 22 report. Another difference was that the August 22
discrimination analysis was based on target signals collected over a shorter
period of time (see app. I for more information regarding TRW's explanation
of report differences). Team members said that they found TRW's explanations
reasonable.

Appendix II: Evaluations of TRW's Software and a Planned Enhancement

Predicted Success in Integrated Flight Test 3

The Phase One Engineering Team predicted that if the targets deployed in
Integrated Flight Test 3 performed as expected, TRW's discrimination
software would successfully identify the warhead as the target. The team
observed that the targets proposed for the flight test had been viewed by
Boeing's sensor in Integrated Flight Test 1A and that target-object features
collected by the sensor would be extremely useful in constructing reference
data for the third flight test. The team concluded that given this prior
knowledge, TRW's discrimination software would successfully select the
correct target even in the most stressing Integrated Flight Test 3 scenario
being considered, if all target objects deployed as expected. However, the
team expressed concern about the software's capabilities if objects deployed
differently, as had happened in previous flight tests.

Limitations of the Team's Evaluation

The Phase One Engineering Team's conclusion that TRW's software successfully
discriminated is based on the assumption that Boeing's and TRW's input data
were accurate. The team did not process the raw data collected by the
sensor's silicon detector array during Integrated Flight Test 1A or develop
their own reference data by running hundreds of simulations. Instead, the
team used target signature data extracted by Boeing and TRW and developed
reference data from a portion of the simulations that TRW ran for its own
post-flight analysis. Because it did not process the raw data from
Integrated Flight Test 1A or develop its own reference data, the team cannot
be said to have definitively proved or disproved TRW's claim that its
software successfully discriminated the mock warhead from decoys using data
collected from Integrated Flight Test 1A. A team member told us its use of
Boeing- and TRW-provided data was appropriate because the former TRW
employee had not alleged that the contractors tampered with the raw test
data or used inappropriate reference data.

Evaluations of the Extended Kalman Filter Feature Extractor

Nichols Research Corporation and the Phase One Engineering Team evaluated
TRW's Extended Kalman Filter Feature Extractor and determined that it could
provide additional information to TRW's discrimination software. However,
Nichols Research told us that its evaluation was not an exhaustive analysis
of the Filter's capability, but an attempt to determine if a Kalman
Filter-which is frequently used to estimate such variables as an object's
position or velocity-could extract a feature from an infrared signal. The
Phase One Engineering Team reported that because of the limited time
available to assess both TRW's discrimination software and the Extended
Kalman Filter Feature Extractor, it did not rigorously test the Filter. Its
analysis was also aimed

    Appendix II: Evaluations of TRW's Software and a Planned Enhancement

at  determining  whether the  Filter  could  extract a  feature from  target
objects.

Nichols' Assessments of the Extended Kalman Filter Feature Extractor

Nichols engineers assessed TRW's application of the Kalman Filter in 1996
and again in 1998. For both evaluations, Nichols engineers constructed a
stand-alone version of the Filter (the Filter is comprised of mathematical
formulas converted into software code) that the engineers believed mirrored
TRW's design. However, Nichols designed its 1996 version of the Filter from
information extracted and pieced together from multiple documents and
without detailed design information from TRW engineers. Nichols Research
Corporation and Ground Based Interceptor Project Management Office officials
said the Nichols' engineers did not talk with TRW's engineers about the
Filter's design because the project office was limiting communication with
the contractors in order to prevent disclosure of contractors' proprietary
information during the source selection for the exoatmospheric kill vehicle.

Nichols' 1996 Evaluation Methodology and Key Results

Nichols' 1998 Evaluation Methodology and Key Results

In 1996, Nichols engineers tested the Filter's ability to extract the
features of simulated signals representative of threat objects. Engineers
said that under controlled conditions they attempted to determine from which
signals the Filter could extract features successfully and from which
signals it could not. Also, because the Filter could not begin to extract
features from the target objects unless it had some advance knowledge about
the signal, engineers conducted tests to determine how much knowledge about
initial conditions the Filter needed.

In its November 1996 report, Nichols concluded that the Filter was unlikely
to enhance the capability of TRW's discrimination software. The assessment
showed that the Filter could not extract the features of a signal unless the
Filter had a great deal of advance knowledge about the signal. It also
showed that the Filter was sensitive to "noise" (undesirable energy that
degrades the target signal).

By 1998, the competitive phase of the exoatmospheric kill vehicle contracts
was over. Based on additional understanding of the Filter's implementation,
coupled with its proposed candidacy as an upgrade to the discrimination
software, the Ground Based Interceptor Project Management Office asked
Nichols to test the Filter again. Nichols engineers were now able to hold
discussions with TRW engineers regarding their respective Filter designs.
From these discussions, Nichols learned that it had designed two elements of
the Filter differently from

Appendix II: Evaluations of TRW's Software and a Planned Enhancement

Limitations of Nichols' 1998 Assessment

TRW. The primary difference was in the number of filters that Nichols and
TRW used to preprocess the infrared signals before the feature extraction
began. Nichols' design included only one pre-processing filter, while TRW's
included several. There was also one less significant difference, which was
the difference in a delay time before feature extraction began. Nichols
modified its version to address these differences.

In its second assessment, Nichols again examined the feature extraction
capability of the Filter. Engineers pointed out that in both assessments the
Filter was tested as stand-alone software, not as an integrated part of
TRW's discrimination software program.

The new tests showed that the redesigned Filter could perform well against
the near-term threat. However, in its report, Nichols expressed reservations
that unless the target and specifics of the target's deployment were well
defined, the Filter's performance would likely be sub-optimal. Nichols also
pointed out that the Filter was unlikely to perform well against targets
that exhibited certain characteristics.

Nichols tested the ability of the Extended Kalman Filter Feature Extractor
to extract features over a wide range of object dynamics and
characteristics, including elements of the far-term threat.4 Nichols
demonstrated the Filter's ability to extract information (features), but did
not assess the Filter's potential impact on the TRW discrimination design.

Because it did not assess the discrimination capability of the Extended
Kalman Filter, Nichols could not predict how the Filter would have performed
against either the target complex for Integrated Flight Test 1A or the
target complex proposed for Integrated Flight Test 3. Target sets for
Integrated Flight Test 1A and initially proposed for Integrated Flight Test
3 were more complex than the near-term threat that Nichols tested the Filter
against.

In their discussions with us, Nichols' engineers stressed that their
assessments should be viewed as an evaluation of a technology concept, not
an evaluation of a fully integrated component of the discrimination
software. Engineers admitted that their approach to this assessment was less
thorough than the evaluation they conducted of TRW's discrimination

4 The far-term threat consists of missiles and their warheads and decoys
that nations of concern are expected to deploy after 2010.

Appendix II: Evaluations of TRW's Software and a Planned Enhancement

software and that engineers did not fully understand why the additional bank
of pre-processing filters improved the Filter's performance.5 They said a
more systematic analysis would be needed to fully evaluate the Filter's
performance.

Phase One Engineering Team's Assessment of the Extended Kalman Filter
Feature Extractor

The National Missile Defense Joint Program Office did not originally ask the
Phase One Engineering Team to evaluate TRW's application of the Kalman
Filter. However, the team told us that program officials later asked them to
do a quick assessment as an addition to their evaluation of TRW's software.
Team members designed an Extended Kalman Filter Feature Extractor similar to
TRW's. Like Nichols first design, the Phase One Engineering Team's design
was not identical to TRW's Filter. In fact, the team did not include any
filters to preprocess the infrared signals before the feature extraction
began.6

The Phase One Engineering Team tested the capability of its Filter against
one simulated target object and one of the objects whose signal was
collected during Integrated Flight Test 1A. The team reported that the
Filter did stabilize and extract the features of the objects' infrared
signals. However, the team added the caveat that the Filter would need good
initial knowledge about the target object before it could begin the
extraction process.

The team reported that its evaluation of the Filter was limited. It said it
did not evaluate the Filter's sensitivity to noise, the information the
Filter needed to begin operation, or the extent to which the Filter would
improve the performance of the discrimination software.

5 Nichols reported that additional pre-processing filters resulted in a more
stable design for the Extended Kalman Filter Feature Extractor. However,
Nichols engineers did not fully understand exactly which mathematical
formulas, or parts of formulas, were affected by the addition of the
filters.

6 The team did not find as Nichols had that the absence of the
pre-processing filters degraded the performance of the Filter.

Appendix III: Justice's Decision Not to Join Lawsuit

Information from the Army Space and Missile Defense Command

Recommendation of the Army Legal Services Agency

Before deciding in March 1999 not to intervene in the False Claims lawsuit
brought by the former TRW employee, the Department of Justice considered
scientific reports and information from two Army sources. Specifically,
Justice relied upon evaluations of TRW's software conducted by the Nichols
Research Corporation and the Phase One Engineering Team (see appendix II for
more information on these evaluations), information provided by the Army
Space and Missile Defense Command, and a recommendation made by the Army
Legal Services Agency. Justice officials told us that the input of the Space
and Missile Defense Command carried more weight in the decision-making
process than the recommendation by the Army Legal Services Agency because
the Command is the contracting agency for the kill vehicle and is therefore
more familiar with the contractors involved as well as the technical details
of the lawsuit.

The Army Space and Missile Defense Command was brought into this matter in
response to an inquiry by the Department of Justice concerning the vouchers
that were submitted for cost reimbursement by Boeing for work performed by
its subcontractor, TRW. Specifically, Justice asked whether the Army would
have paid the contractor's vouchers if Boeing and TRW had misrepresented the
capabilities of the software in the vouchers. In a letter to Justice, dated
February 24, 1999, the Command stated that the Army did not consider the
vouchers submitted by Boeing for TRW's work to be false claims. The letter
cited the Nichols' and Phase One Engineering Team's reports as support for
its conclusions and noted that a cost-reimbursement research-and-development
contract only requires that the contractor exercise its "best efforts."

There is some uncertainty about how the Army Legal Services Agency1 came to
recommend in February 1999 that Justice not intervene in the lawsuit. Army
Legal Services had very little documentation to explain the recommendation,
and agency officials told us that they remember very little about the case.
The agency's letter stated that it was basing its recommendation on
conversations with investigators handling the case and on the former TRW
engineer's wishes.

1  The Legal  Services Agency  serves as  the liaison  to the  Department of
Justice for procurement fraud cases involving Army programs.

Appendix III: Justice's Decision Not to Join Lawsuit

However, the lead investigator in the case (from the Defense Criminal
Investigative Service) stated that he and his team had not recommended to
the Army that the case not proceed. The little documentation available shows
only that the case attorney's predecessor spoke with the lead investigator
shortly after the case was opened. Officials said they could not remember
why they cited conversations with case investigators in the letter and
agreed that there were no other investigators aside from those in the
Defense Criminal Investigative Service. One official stressed that the
letter does not explicitly say that the investigators recommended
nonintervention.

As for the engineer's wishes, Army Legal Services has no record of direct
contacts with the engineer, and agency officials acknowledged that they
probably obtained information about the engineer's wishes from Justice.
Agency officials also said they could not remember why they cited the
engineer's wishes in their letter. The engineer told us that she did tell
Justice that if it was not going to help, it should not hinder the case. The
engineer also told us that this may have been misinterpreted by the agency
as a refusal of any help. Justice officials agreed that the engineer
consistently wanted Justice to take up the case. Legal Services Agency
officials noted that it would be very unusual for someone not to want help
from Justice, especially considering that less than 10 percent of False
Claims cases succeed when Justice is not involved.

Army Legal Services Agency officials said that the case was one of several
hundred the agency handles at any one time and that their involvement in a
case like this one is usually minimal, unless the agency is involved in the
prosecution. The officials stated that the Army Space and Missile Defense
Command letter likely would have influenced their own letter because the
Command's deputy counsel was recognized for his expertise in matters of
procurement fraud. They also said that they relied on Justice to provide
information about technical details of the case. The case attorney stated
that he had not reviewed the Phase One Engineering Team or Nichols studies.

Appendix IV: Steps to Assure Independent and Objective Review by the Phase
One Engineering Team

The Defense Criminal Investigative Service, which was investigating the
allegations against Boeing and TRW, asked the National Missile Defense Joint
Program Office to establish an independent panel to evaluate the capability
and performance of TRW's discrimination software. Although Nichols Research
Corporation, a support contractor overseeing Boeing's work, had already
conducted such an assessment and reported that the software met
requirements, the case investigator was concerned about the ability of
Nichols to provide a truly objective assessment. In response to the
investigator's request, the program office utilized an existing advisory
group, known as the Phase One Engineering Team, to conduct the second
assessment. Comprised of various Federally Funded Research and Development
Centers, this group had been established by the Strategic Defense Initiative
Organization in 1988 in order to provide the program office access to a
continuous, independent and objective source of technical and engineering
expertise. Since Federally Funded Research and Development Centers are
expressly authorized, established and operated to provide the government
with independent and objective advice, the Joint Program Office officials
determined that making use of such a group would be sufficient to assure an
independent and objective review. Scientific associations, however, said
that there are alternative ways of choosing a panel to review contentious
issues. Nonetheless, program officials said that establishing a review team
using such methods would likely have increased the time the reviewers needed
to complete their work and could have increased the cost of the review.

When the National Missile Defense Joint Program Office determined that it
should undertake a review of the TRW discrimination software because of
allegations that contractors had misrepresented their work, it turned to the
Phase One Engineering Team. The Phase One Engineering Team was established
in 1988 by the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization-later known as the
Ballistic Missile Defense Organization-as an umbrella mechanism to obtain
technical and engineering support from Federally Funded Research and
Development Centers. To ensure that the individual scientists who work on
each review undertaken by the Phase One Engineering Team have the requisite
expertise, membership on each review team varies with each assignment. When
asked to advise a program, the director of the Phase One Engineering Team
determines which Federally Funded Research and Development Centers have the
required expertise. The director then contacts officials at those centers to
identify the appropriate scientists for the task. According to the director,
the National Missile Defense Joint Program Office does not dictate the
individuals who work on a Phase One Engineering Team review. When the

The Phase One Engineering Team

Appendix IV: Steps to Assure Independent and Objective Review by the Phase
One Engineering Team

director received the request to conduct a review of TRW's discrimination
software, he determined there were three Federally Funded Research and
Development Centers best suited to undertake this review. A total of five
scientists were then selected from these three centers to comprise the
review team: one member from the Aerospace Corporation, sponsored by the
U.S. Air Force; two members from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's
Lincoln Laboratory, also sponsored by the U.S. Air Force; and two members
from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, sponsored by the Department
of Energy.

The federal government established the Federally Funded Research and
Development Centers to meet special or long-term research or development
needs of the sponsoring federal government agencies that were not being met
effectively by existing in-house or contractor resources.1 The federal
government enters into long-term relationships with the Federally Funded
Research and Development Centers in order to encourage them to provide the
continuity that allows them to attract high quality personnel who will
maintain their expertise, retain their objectivity and independence,
preserve familiarity with the government's needs, and provide a quick
response capability.2 To achieve these goals, the Federally Funded Research
and Development Centers must have access, beyond that required in normal
contractual relationships with the government, to government and supplier
information, sensitive or proprietary data, and to employees and facilities.
Because of this special access, the Federally Funded Research and
Development Centers are required by the Federal Acquisition Regulation and
agreements with their sponsoring agencies to operate in the public interest
with objectivity and independence, to be free from organizational conflicts
of interest, and to fully disclose their affairs to the sponsoring agency.3
To further ensure that they are free from organizational conflicts of
interest, Federally Funded Research and Development Centers are operated,
managed, and/or administered by a university or consortium of universities;
other not-for-profit or non-profit organization; or an industrial firm, as
an autonomous organization or as an identifiable separate operating unit of
a parent organization.4

1  Federal  Acquisition  Regulation  35.017(a)(2).   2  Federal  Acquisition
Regulation 35.017(a)(4).  3  Federal Acquisition Regulation  35.017(a)(2). 4
Federal Acquisition Regulation 35.017(a)(3).

Appendix IV: Steps to Assure Independent and Objective Review by the Phase
One Engineering Team

All three of the Federally Funded Research and Development Centers involved
in this review had entered into sponsoring agreements and contracts with
their respective sponsoring agencies that contain the requirements imposed
on such Centers by the Federal Acquisition Regulation. For example, the
sponsoring agreement between the Air Force and Lincoln Laboratory requires
that Lincoln Laboratory avoid any action that would put its personnel in
perceived or actual conflicts of interest regarding either unfair
competition or objectivity. Joint Program Office officials said they relied
upon adherence to the governing regulations and sponsoring agreements to
assure themselves that the members of this review team could provide a
fresh, unbiased look at TRW's software.

Officials with whom we spoke expressed confidence in the team's
independence. Justice officials said that they had no reason to doubt the
objectivity or independence of the review team's members nor the seriousness
and thoroughness of their effort. The Phase One Engineering Team director
told us that independence is a program goal and that their reviews report
the technical truth regardless of what the National Missile Defense Joint
Program Office might want to hear. The director noted that the best way to
ensure independence is to have the best scientists from different
organizations discuss the technical merits of an issue.

Alternative Panel Composition

At your request, we spoke with officials of the National Academy of Sciences
and the American Physical Society who told us that there are alternative
ways to choose a panel. One method commonly used by these scientific
organizations, which frequently conduct studies and evaluate reports or
journal articles, is peer review. According to a GAO report5 that studied
federal peer review practices, peer review is a process wherein scientists
with knowledge and expertise equal to that of the researchers whose work
they review make an independent assessment of the technical or scientific
merit of that research. According to the Phase One Engineering Team
director, the evaluation performed by the team assigned to review TRW's
software was a type of peer review. However, National Academy of Sciences
and American Physical Society officials told us that since individuals
knowledgeable in a given area often have opinions or biases, an unbiased
study team should include members who would, as a group, espouse a broad
spectrum of opinions and interests. Such a team

5  Federal Research: Peer Review Practices at  Federal Science Agencies Vary
(GAO/RCED-99-99, March 17, 1999).

Appendix IV: Steps to Assure Independent and Objective Review by the Phase
One Engineering Team

should include both supporters and critics of the issue being studied. These
officials told us that it was their opinion that the Phase One Engineering
Team members are "insiders" who are unlikely to be overly critical of the
National Missile Defense program.

The National Missile Defense Joint Program Office official who requested
that the Phase One Engineering Team conduct such a review said that he could
have appointed a panel such as that suggested by the National Academy of
Sciences and the American Physical Society. But he said that he wanted a
panel that was already knowledgeable about warhead discrimination in space
and required little additional knowledge to complete its review. The
official noted that the team's report was originally intended to be a
one-to-two-month effort, even though it eventually took about eight months
to complete. Some additional time was required to address further issues
raised by the Defense Criminal Investigative Service. A team member said
that the statement of work was defined so that the panel could complete the
evaluation in a timely manner with the data available. Officials of the
National Academy of Sciences and the American Physical Society acknowledged
that convening a panel such as the type they suggested would likely have
required more time and could have been more costly.

Appendix V: Boeing Integrated Flight Test 1A Requirements and Actual
Performance as Reported by Boeing and TRW

The table below includes selected requirements that Boeing established
before the flight test to evaluate sensor performance and the actual sensor
performance characteristics that Boeing and TRW discussed in the August 22
report.

  Table 2: Integrated Flight-Test 1A Requirements Established by Boeing and
                             Actual Performance

Integrated   Flight   Test   1A   performance     reported   by   Boeing/TRW

                       Capability Testeda Requirement

b

Acquisition range The sensor subsystem shall acquire the target objects at a
specified distance.

                 The performance exceeded the requirement.c

Probability  of detection  The  sensor shall  detect target  objects  with a
specified precision, which is expressed as a probability.

                 The performance satisfied the requirement.

False alarm rate False alarms shall not exceed a specified level. The
performance did not satisfy the requirement. The false alarm rate exceeded
Boeing's requirement by more than 200 to 1 because of problems with the
power supply and the higher than expected temperature of the sensor.

Infrared radiation The sensor subsystem shall demonstrate a specified The
contractor met the requirement in one measurement precision measurement
precision at a specified range. infrared measurement band, but not in
another.

Angular Measurement Given specified conditions, the sensor subsystem shall
The performance was better than the Precision (AMP) determine the angular
position of the targets with a requirement. specified angular measurement
precision.

Closely spaced objects Resolution of closely spaced objects shall be
satisfied The closely spaced objects requirement could resolution at a
specified range. not be validated because the targets did not deploy with
the required separation.

Silicon detector array The time to cool the silicon detector array to less
than a The performance did not satisfy the requirement

Hold tim
cool-down time desired
temperature shall be less than
or equal to a because the
desired temperature was not
                               specified length of time.
                               reached. Nevertheless, the
                               silicon detector
                                                              operated as designed
                                                              at the higher
                                                              temperatures.
               d
e With a certain probability, the silicon detector array's Even though the
detector array's temperature did temperature shall be held below a desired
temperature not reach the desired temperature, the array was for a specified
minimum length of time. cooled to an acceptable operating temperature and
held at that temperature for longer than required.

aThe requirements displayed in the table were established by the contractor
and were not imposed by the government. Additionally, because of various
sensor problems recognized prior to the test, Boeing waived most of the
requirements. Boeing established these requirements to ensure that its
exoatmospheric kill vehicle, when fully developed, could destroy a warhead
with the single shot precision (expressed as a probability) required by the
Ground Based Interceptor Project Management Office.

b Boeing's acquisition range specification required that the specified
range, detection probability, and false alarm rate be achieved
simultaneously. Boeing's Chief Scientist said that because the range and
target signals varied with time and the total observation time was sharply
limited during Integrated Flight Test 1A, the probability of detection could
not be accurately determined. As a result, the test was not a suitable means
for assessing whether the sensor can attain the specified acquisition range.

Appendix V: Boeing Integrated Flight Test 1A Requirements and Actual
Performance as Reported by Boeing and TRW

cThe revised 60-day report states that the sensor did not detect the target
until approximately two-thirds of the nominal acquisition range. Boeing
engineers told us that while this statement appears to contradict the claim
that the target was acquired at 107 percent of the specified range, it does
not. Boeing engineers said that the nominal acquisition range refers to the
range at which a sensor that is performing as designed would acquire the
target, which is a substantially greater range than the specified
acquisition range. However, neither Boeing nor TRW could provide
documentation of the nominal acquisition range so that we could verify that
these statements are not contradictory.

dIn the main body of the August 22 report, the contractor discussed "hold
time." However, it is not mentioned in the appendix to the August 22 report
that lists the performance characteristics against which Boeing planned to
evaluate its sensor's performance. Rather, the appendix refers to a "minimum
target object viewing" time, which has the same requirement as the hold
time. Boeing reported that its sensor collected target signals over
approximately 54 seconds.

                     Appendix VI: Scope and Methodology

We determined whether Boeing and TRW disclosed key results and limitations
of Integrated Flight Test 1A to the National Missile Defense Joint Program
Office by examining test reports submitted to the program office on August
13, 1997, August 22, 1997, and April 1, 1998, and by examining the December
11, 1997, briefing charts. We also held discussions with and examined
various reports and documents prepared by Boeing North American, Anaheim,
California; TRW Inc., Redondo Beach, California; the Raytheon Company,
Tucson, Arizona; Nichols Research Corporation, Huntsville, Alabama; the
Phase One Engineering Team, Washington, D.C.; the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology/Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington, Massachusetts; the National
Missile Defense Joint Program Office, Arlington, Virginia, and Huntsville,
Alabama; the Office of the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation,
Washington D.C.; the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command,
Huntsville, Alabama; the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, Mission
Viejo, California, and Arlington, Virginia; and the Institute for Defense
Analyses, Alexandria, Virginia.

We held discussions with and examined documents prepared by Dr. Theodore
Postol, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Dr.
Nira Schwartz, Torrance, California; and Mr. Roy Danchick, Santa Monica,
California.

In addition, we hired the Utah State University Space Dynamics Laboratory,
Logan, Utah, to examine the performance of the Boeing sensor because we
needed to determine the effect the higher operating temperature had on the
sensor's performance. As agreed with your offices, we did not replicate
TRW's assessment of its software using target signals that the Boeing sensor
collected during the test. This would have required us to make engineers and
computers available to verify TRW's software, format raw target signals for
input into the software, develop reference data, and run the data through
the software. We did not have these resources available, and we, therefore,
cannot attest to the accuracy of TRW's discrimination claims.

We examined the methodology, key results, and limitations of evaluations
completed by Nichols Research Corporation and the Phase One Engineering Team
by analyzing Nichols' report on TRW's discrimination software dated December
1997; Nichols' reports on the Extended Kalman Filter dated November 1996 and
November 1998; and the Phase One Engineering Team's "Independent Review of
TRW Discrimination Techniques" dated January 1999. In addition, we held
discussions with the Nichols engineers and Phase One Engineering Team
members that

Appendix VI: Scope and Methodology

conducted the assessments and with officials from the National Missile
Defense Joint Program Office. We did not replicate the evaluations conducted
by Nichols and the Phase One Engineering Team and cannot attest to the
accuracy of their reports.

We examined the basis for the Department of Justice's decision not to
intervene in the False Claims lawsuit by holding discussions with and
examining documents prepared by the Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.
We also held discussions with and reviewed documents at the U.S. Army Legal
Services Agency, Arlington, Virginia, and the U.S. Army Space and Missile
Defense Command, Huntsville, Alabama.

We reviewed the National Missile Defense Joint Program Office's efforts to
address potential conflicts of interest that an expert panel might have in
reviewing the results of Integrated Flight Test 1A by holding discussions
with National Missile Defense Joint Program Office officials and with
members of the expert panel, known as the Phase One Engineering Team. We
also examined the federal regulations and support agreements agreed to by
the Federally Funded Research and Development Centers and national
laboratory that employed the panel members. Last, as you requested, we
discussed alternative methods of establishing an expert panel with the
American Physical Society, Ridge, New York; and the National Academy of
Sciences' National Research Council, Washington, D.C.

Our work was conducted from August 2000 through February 2002 according to
generally accepted government auditing standards. The length of time the
National Missile Defense Joint Program Office required to release documents
to us significantly slowed our review. For example, the program office
required approximately 4 months to release key documents such as Nichols
1997 evaluation of TRW's discrimination software and Nichols 1996 and 1998
evaluations of the Extended Kalman Filter Feature Extractor. We requested
these and other documents on September 14, 2000, and received them on
January 9, 2001.

Appendix VII: Comments from the Department of Defense

                      Appendix VIII: Major Contributors

Acquisition and Bob Levin, Director Barbara Haynes, Assistant Director

Sourcing Management Cristina Chaplain, Assistant Director, Communications
David Hand, Analyst-in-charge Subrata Ghoshroy, Technical Advisor William
Petrick, Analyst

Applied  Research and   Nabajyoti Barkakati,  Senior Level  Technologist Hai
Tran, Senior Level Technologist

Methods

General Counsel Stephanie May, Assistant General Counsel

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