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Reliance on `primitive, difficult-to-use' LIDS simulator threatens 2005 system deployment
WASHINGTON - Relying heavily on a "very primitive" simulator, the test program for the U.S. missile defense system is deficient and is slipping further behind schedule, according to an internal Defense Department review. Unless the shortfalls are addressed, the report warns, the planned 2005 deployment of an initial missile defense capability "appears unlikely."
The August 2000 review, by the Pentagon's Office of Operational Test and Evaluation, found that the scope of flight tests has been limited and that key simulation technologies needed for testing are "too immature to provide reliable estimates of performance."
The report was prepared for the Clinton administration by Philip Coyle, the former director of operational testing and evaluation, as part of a DOD Deployment Readiness Review. Under pressure from lawmakers, the closely held report was turned over to Congress in May by the Defense Department. Over Pentagon objections, the House Government Reform Committee released the unclassified review in late June.
Simulation technology is considered critical to the testing program since planners are only able to test sensors, communications links and interceptors against a narrow range of scenarios. But the simulation effort has been plagued by delays and technical glitches that threaten to undermine the test program.
The simulator is "very primitive, difficult for operators to use and does things it's not supposed to do," Coyle said in an interview. Coyle, a former mechanical engineer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory who now serves here as a senior adviser at the Center for Defense Information, said operators have seen "phantom tracks" on simulations but were unable to stop the system from launching interceptors against the false targets.
The National Missile Defense simulator system, called LIDS (Lead-System-Integrator Integration Distributed Simulation), was developed by Boeing...