Defense Acquisitions: Future Aerostat and Airship Investment Decisions Drive Oversight and Coordination Needs
Released: 2012-10-23T00:00:00

Letter

Background

This report examines two types of LTA platforms: aerostats and airships. Both use a lifting gas—most commonly helium—but an aerostat is tethered to the ground while an airship is free moving. Aerostats lack a propulsion mechanism and are connected to a mooring station on the ground by a long cable called a tether. The tether, in addition to securing the aerostat to one general area above the ground, usually provides power to the payload, such as ISR sensors and communications equipment, and carries data between the payload and ground control station. Airships, on the other hand, are manned or unmanned, self-propelled vehicles that have directional control. See figure 1 for an example of an aerostat system.

There are three basic types of airships: (1) non-rigid—which has no frame and maintains its envelope (external structure) shape through the slightly pressurized gas it contains; (2) semi-rigid—which also maintains its shape through the slightly pressurized gas it contains, but also has a structural keel along the bottom of the envelope to help distribute loads; and (3) rigid—which has an internal rigid frame to maintain its shape and to distribute lift and load weight. Blimps flying above sporting events are commonly non-rigid airships, whereas the Hindenburg airship of the 1930s is an example of a rigid airship.

Airships can be further categorized by their shape—conventional or hybrid. A conventional airship has an ellipsoidal shape reminiscent of those that fly over sporting events. A hybrid airship combines the buoyant lift of a lighter-than-air gas with the aerodynamic lift created by the shape of the airship as it flies through the air. Shaped roughly like the cross- section of an aircraft wing, a hybrid airship can generate up to 30 percent of its lift as it flies. Additional lift can be generated by directing the thrust of on-board propulsion systems (called vectored thrust) downward. Because of the additional sources of lift, hybrid airships theoretically can take off in a heavier-than-air configuration. See figures 2 and 3 for respective depictions of conventional and hybrid airships.

In the early to mid 1900s, and especially during World War II, the U.S. Navy operated a variety of airships for maritime patrol and fleet reconnaissance, including assistance in antisubmarine warfare. Additionally, in the early 1930s, airships were used for commercial transportation across the Atlantic Ocean. However, advances in fixed- wing aircraft design, capabilities, and availability, as well as in enemy antiaircraft weaponry, led to a marked decline in the military and commercial use of airships. For instance, the Navy disbanded its last airship unit in 1962, and since then, the military use of airships for other than research and development purposes essentially discontinued.

Since 1978, DOD has operated aerostats along the southern U.S. border for counterdrug detection and monitoring. Additionally, civil government agencies have used aerostats for a variety of purposes, such as monitoring of environmental pollution, and atmospheric and climate research. For example, since 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency has used aerostats for the purpose of sampling air emissions from open sources, such as prescribed forest burns. Additionally, the Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has used small aerostats to collect wind data. Furthermore, the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Customs and Border Protection is considering using aerostats for its border security mission. The overall investment of civil government agencies in LTA activities is small compared to that of DOD. See appendix II for examples of civil agency aerostat activities. While commercial use of airships has primarily been limited to sightseeing and advertising, there has been interest in using airships for cargo transportation to logistically austere locations, such as remote areas in Alaska and Canada.

Several factors have increased DOD’s attention toward LTA platforms. The lack of enemy air defense capabilities in recent military operations has made threats to LTA platforms appear to be low, and the military’s demand for persistent ISR has grown significantly. For example, DOD plans to almost double the number of aerostats—from 66 to 125—in Afghanistan for ISR in fiscal years 2011 and 2012. Also, growing budget pressures have encouraged the study of potential solutions to military problems, such as persistent ISR and heavy-lift cargo transportation, which may reduce procurement and operations and maintenance costs. For example, a 2008 Army Science Board study that compared fixed-wing unmanned aircraft, space satellites, and LTA platforms for providing persistent communications, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions, concluded that airships offered great promise at being effective in supporting these missions because of factors including ease of reconfigurability, extended time on station, large payload capacity, and lower cost.

LTA platforms face several significant operational hazards. For example, weather phenomena such as high winds and lightning have posed the highest threats to aerostats deployed by the military in Afghanistan. Before the arrival of hazardous weather conditions, aerostat operations must cease and the platform must be lowered and secured to the mooring station to help prevent platform or payload damage. Additionally, high winds can make airships hard to control and increase fuel consumption, reducing on-station endurance. Furthermore, combat operations can result in punctures in the fabric caused by bullets and other projectiles. However, low helium pressure in the envelope (which is only slightly higher than the surrounding atmospheric pressure) means small helium leaks from bullet holes are typically slow and repairs can usually wait until a normally scheduled maintenance period.

Most Key Aerostat and Airship Efforts Underway or Initiated Since 2007 Have Been Fielded or Completed

We identified 15 key aerostat and airship efforts that were underway or had been initiated since 2007, and DOD had or has primary responsibility for all of these efforts. Most of these efforts have been fielded, completed, or terminated. Over the past 6 years, DOD’s overall investment has increased, and the estimated total funding of these efforts was almost $7 billion from fiscal years 2007 through 2012. However, funding estimates for aerostat and airship efforts under development beyond fiscal year 2012 decline significantly, although there is an expectation that investment in the area will continue.

Status of 15 Efforts

Highlights on the 15 aerostat and airships efforts that were underway or initiated since 2007 by DOD are presented in the table below—details of each are provided in appendix III. Most of the aerostat and airship efforts have been fielded or completed, and are intended to provide ISR support or persistent surveillance, with on-station duration time typically greater than fixed-wing unmanned aircraft.

DOD’s pursuit of aerostats and airships is mostly due to the ability of these platforms to loiter for a longer period of time than fixed-wing unmanned aircraft, which makes them very suitable for supporting the ISR mission. The various ISR sensors used or planned for the aerostats and airships in our review include: electro-optical cameras to conduct optical monitoring of the electromagnetic spectrum from ultraviolet through far infrared; ground moving target indicator radars to detect, locate, and track vehicles throughout a large area when they are moving slowly on or just above the surface of land or water; unattended transient acoustic measurement and signature intelligence systems that use sets of microphones to capture sounds that are processed and analyzed to determine the direction of the points of origin and impact of mortar launch; and signals intelligence sensors to collect transmissions deriving from communications, electronic, and foreign instrumentation systems.

The aerostat and airship efforts we identified vary in terms of the time they can operate on station in any single session. Their on-station endurance time is typically greater than that of fixed-wing unmanned aircraft. For example, the TARS aerostat is expected to stay on station for 6 days, whereas the LEMV airship is expected to stay on station for at least 16 days. In contrast, tactical and theater-level fixed-wing unmanned aircraft can stay on station from 6 hours for a Shadow aircraft, to 40 hours for a Sky Warrior. The amount of time on station is greatly dependent on how often the aerostats and airships need to be topped off with additional helium, and in the case of most airships, how often they have to be refueled.

DOD Has Invested Almost $7 Billion in Aerostats and Airships over the Past 6 Years

Over the past 6 years, overall total DOD investment in aerostat and airship development, acquisition, and operations and maintenance has increased, ranging from about $339 million in fiscal year 2007 to a high of about $2.2 billion in fiscal year 2010, and about $1.3 billion in fiscal year 2012, as illustrated in figure 4. DOD has invested almost $7 billion from fiscal years 2007 through 2012 on key aerostat and airship efforts in our review. Moreover, aerostat-related investment—$5.8 billion—accounted for more than 80 percent of the total. See appendix IV for additional details on the reported funding for these efforts.

Over 90 percent of all estimated aerostat investment from fiscal years 2007 to 2012—almost $5.4 billion—is attributed to the development and procurement of three aerostat programs—JLENS, PGSS, and PTDS. Aerostat funding increased through fiscal year 2010 primarily because of increased demand for PGSS and PTDS aerostats in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Most of the total estimated airship investment from fiscal years 2007 to 2012—approximately $1.1 billion—consists of research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) costs. Of this amount, over 90 percent of the airship RDT&E investment—approximately $1 billion—is for the Blue Devil Block 2, ISIS and LEMV development efforts. The major increase depicted for fiscal year 2010 reflects an increase in RDT&E investment due to the beginning of funding for the Blue Devil Block 2 and LEMV development efforts, as well as a substantial increase for the ISIS development effort the Air Force began funding.

Estimated Funding for Aerostats and Airships under Development Expected to Decline after Fiscal Year 2012

Estimated funding for JLENS, ISIS, LEMV, and Project Pelican—efforts under development—is expected to decline significantly after fiscal year 2012, as illustrated in figure 5.

However, according to DOD officials, investment in this area is expected to continue in the future. The aggregate funding for these four development efforts declines from $473 million in fiscal year 2012, to $23 million in fiscal year 2016. Funding for JLENS, the development effort with the highest estimated cost from fiscal years 2012 to 2016, drops from $369 million in fiscal year 2012 to $187 million in fiscal year 2013, $92 million in fiscal year 2014, $31 million in fiscal year 2015, and $23 million in fiscal year 2016. The original funding profile for JLENS showed substantively higher amounts over this time period, but due to a recent decision to reduce the number of JLENS aerostats that DOD intends to procure from 16 to 2, the current funding profile reflects this significant reduction in procurement. There are also investment uncertainties in the near term for LEMV and ISIS. According to LEMV program officials, if the first LEMV is successfully demonstrated in Afghanistan, then it may transition to an acquisition program which would likely require additional funding. Also, ISIS program officials do not yet know if ISIS will become a program of record.

According to an official in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, while DOD expects to continue funding airship and aerostat efforts beyond fiscal year 2016, specific information regarding funding amounts is not available at this time. Furthermore, we did not find any current architectures, investment plans, or roadmaps that incorporated aerostat and airship efforts to indicate DOD’s commitment to increase or reduce its investment in this area.

Aerostat and Airship Efforts under Development Are Experiencing Technical Challenges

Three of the four aerostat and airship efforts under development, plus another airship development effort that was terminated in June 2012, have suffered from high acquisition risks because of significant technical challenges, leading to cost overruns and schedule delays. Additionally, DOD used the rapid acquisition process to acquire airships that had high technical risks.

Aerostat and Airship Technical Challenges

JLENS has experienced schedule delays and a Nunn-McCurdy unit cost breach, ISIS will not and LEMV did not meet their originally scheduled launch dates and have experienced cost overruns, and Blue Devil Block 2 was terminated to avoid substantially increasing costs caused by technical problems.

The Army initiated JLENS system development in August 2005.

JLENS consists of two large aerostats—over 240 feet in length—each with a 7,000 pound payload capacity for cruise missile detection and tracking. As we have previously reported, the program has experienced design issues associated with the mobile mooring transport vehicle, as well as schedule delays caused by synchronization of JLENS with the Army’s Integrated Air and Missile Defense program. JLENS was originally scheduled to enter production in September 2010. However, that same month, an aerostat accident resulted in the loss of one of the JLENS platforms. The accident, as well as recent system integration challenges, led to a decision to not procure production units. JLENS also incurred a critical Nunn-McCurdy program acquisition unit cost breach with the submission of the fiscal year 2013 President’s Budget due to a 100 percent reduction in planned procurement quantities—the program previously planned to procure 16 aerostats. Now, the program is scheduled to only acquire 2 aerostats using research and development funding, and is not expected to enter the production phase.

ISIS is a joint Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Air Force science and technology effort initiated by DARPA in 2004. ISIS is to develop and demonstrate a radar sensor system that is fully integrated into a stratospheric airship measuring 510 feet in length and with a payload capacity of 6,600 pounds. ISIS has experienced technical challenges stemming from subsystem development and radar antennae panel manufacturing. Consequently, earlier this year DARPA temporarily delayed airframe development activities, and instead will mainly focus on radar risk reduction activities. During this time period, the ISIS team will develop an airship risk reduction plan and conduct limited airship activities. Based on the radar and airship risk reduction studies, DARPA will reassess the future plan for ISIS with the Air Force.

The Army initiated development efforts on LEMV in 2010. At over 300 feet in length and with a goal of carrying a 2,500 pound payload, LEMV offers substantive potential ISR capabilities—if the program can meet its performance objectives. LEMV’s deployment is behind schedule by at least 10 months (about a 56 percent schedule increase) due to issues with fabric production, getting foreign parts cleared through customs, adverse weather conditions causing the evacuation of work crews, and first-time integration and testing issues. Also, LEMV is about 12,000 pounds overweight because components, such as tail fins, exceed weight thresholds. According to program officials, the increased weight reduces the airship’s estimated on-station endurance at an altitude of 20,000 feet from the required 21 days, to 4 to 5 days. However, current plans call for operating the airship at a lower altitude of 16,000 feet, which is expected to enable an on-station duration time of 16 days with minimal impacts to operational effectiveness (other than about a 24 percent reduction to on-station endurance). According to program officials, the biggest risk to program development was the ambitious 18-month initial development schedule (from June 2010 to December 2011). The Army successfully launched and recovered LEMV during its first flight in August 2012. The Army identified a fiscal year 2012 funding shortfall of $21.3 million resulting from the need for additional engineering and production support to mitigate and resolve technical issues at the LEMV assembly facility.

The Air Force initiated development efforts on Blue Devil Block 2 in 2010. Much like LEMV, this effort was to deliver a large airship that would carry a 2,500 pound payload in support of the ISR mission. The length of the airship was 370 feet. Prior to its termination in June 2012, the Blue Devil Block 2 airship effort experienced significant technical problems resulting in cost overruns and schedule delays. According to an Air Force official, the Blue Devil Block 2 development effort had a very aggressive development schedule because it was intended to meet an urgent need for use in Afghanistan. Some of the technical problems included the tail fins, which were overweight and failed structural load design testing, rendering the airship not flyable. Other technical problems included the flight control software which experienced problems due to issues related to scaling—although the software worked well with a much smaller scale version of the airship, it did not work well with the much larger Blue Devil Block 2 airship. The Air Force terminated the Blue Devil Block 2 airship effort in June 2012 due to the technical problems experienced with the airframe and the need to avoid substantially increasing costs of the effort. For example, the contractor estimated that the 1-year post-deployment operations and maintenance costs would total $29 million, but the Air Force’s cost estimate ranged between $100 and $120 million—an estimate that was at least 245 percent higher than the contractor’s estimate. According to an Air Force official, the contractor’s estimate did not include costs such as for spare parts and repairs.

Some Rapid Acquisitions Took on Too Much Risk

We found that DOD used its rapid acquisition process to initiate two airship efforts to quickly deliver warfighter capabilities, but significantly underestimated the risks of meeting cost, schedule, and performance goals. DOD has taken a number of steps to provide urgently needed capabilities to the warfighter more quickly and to alleviate the challenges associated with the traditional acquisition process for acquiring capabilities. Some of these steps include quicker requirements validation and reduced levels of oversight, including exemption from disciplined analyses that help to ensure requirements are achievable within available technologies, design, and other resources, and that programs have adequate knowledge in hand before moving forward in the acquisition process. The success of this accelerated acquisition process is predicated on efforts that do not involve high development and acquisition risks, such as limiting technology development by using mature technologies. However, in the case of LEMV and Blue Devil Block 2, the risks of these acquisitions were higher than usual for rapid acquisitions. Specifically:

The LEMV acquisition strategy was initially approved when technologies were estimated to be at technology readiness levels 4 through 7. At the time, DOD’s acquisition guidance recommended a DOD officials technology readiness level 6 for product development.stated that they were willing to assume higher risk with the potential of developing an asset that had much greater on-station endurance and could provide capabilities on a single platform rather than on multiple aircraft. They stated that the higher risk of the effort was justified because there were multiple other efforts that were already providing surveillance capabilities in theater. DOD officials stated that, at the time the LEMV initiative was started, they expected the airship could be scaled up from a commercially existing demonstration variant and that the Army could meet the 18 month schedule to design, fabricate, assemble, test, and deploy the system. However, as noted earlier, LEMV experienced schedule delays of at least 10 months, largely rooted in technical, design, and engineering problems in scaling up the airship to the Army’s needs.

DOD also significantly underestimated the risk of the Blue Devil Block 2 development effort. The Secretary of Defense designated Blue Devil Block 2 as an urgent need solution to eliminate combat capability deficiencies that had resulted in combat fatalities. According to program officials, it was thought that the Blue Devil Block 2 airship would be a variant of commercially-available conventional airships and therefore deemed the technologies associated with the platform to be mature. However, the part of the program considered to be the lowest risk—the airship platform—turned out to be a high risk development effort. At the time of project cancelation, the Blue Devil Block 2 airship was more than 10,000 pounds overweight, which limited the airship’s estimated endurance. The weight issue contributed to other design concerns, the tail fins were too heavy and were damaged during testing, and the flight control software experienced problems related to scaling to a larger airship. The Air Force terminated the acquisition in June 2012.

The experience of these two programs under the urgent needs acquisition process is not unique. We recently reported that urgent needs initiatives that required technology development took longer after contract award to field because of technical challenges and testing delays than initiatives that involved mature technologies. Additionally, as reported in a 2009 Defense Science Board Task Force Study, squeezing new technology development into an urgent timeframe creates risks for delays and ultimately may not adequately address an existing capability gap.

DOD Has Provided Limited Oversight to Ensure Coordination of Its Aerostat and Airship Efforts

DOD has not provided effective oversight to ensure coordination of its aerostat and airship development and acquisition efforts. Consequently, these efforts have not been effectively integrated into strategic frameworks, such as investment plans and roadmaps. At the time of our review, DOD did not have comprehensive information on all its efforts nor its entire investment in aerostats and airships. Additionally, DOD’s coordination efforts have been limited to specific technical activities, as opposed to having a higher level authority to ensure coordination is effective. These shortcomings may have led to an instance of duplication, which ended when one airship effort was terminated. DOD has recently taken steps to bolster oversight. Whether these steps are sufficient largely depends on the direction DOD intends to take with aerostat and airship programs. If it decides to make significant future investments in efforts, more steps may be needed to shape these investments.

Aerostat and Airship Capabilities Not Effectively Integrated into Strategic Frameworks

We have reported on the value of strategic planning for laying out goals and objectives, suggesting actions for addressing those objectives, allocating resources, identifying roles and responsibilities, and integrating relevant parties.and airship capabilities into its strategic frameworks for future acquisitions of unmanned or ISR systems. At the time of our review, DOD did not have a reliable inventory of its aerostat and airship efforts, including insight into its entire investment in aerostats and airships, or an office that could discuss the status of all of these efforts. We found several instances where aerostat and airship efforts were not well integrated into recent strategic planning documents, such as investment plans and However, DOD has not effectively integrated aerostat roadmaps, which can help guide and prioritize DOD’s investments.example:

U.S. Army Unmanned Aircraft Systems Roadmap 2010-2035—which is to inform warfighting functional concepts, contribute to capabilities- based assessments, and assist in the development of resource- informed decisions on new technologies—mentions the concept of LTA vehicles, but does not specify the potential contributions of specific aerostats or airships.

DOD’s Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap FY2011-2036— which is to address the recent surge in the use of unmanned systems and describe a common vision for the continued integration of unmanned systems into the DOD joint force structure—includes a description of several aerostat and airship efforts underway, but it does not specifically cover how or whether aerostats and airships could contribute to DOD’s force structure.

Strategic frameworks and planning efforts can be essential to the effective oversight of portfolios, especially when they consist of multiple types of acquisitions in various stages of development, production, fielding, and sustainment. Such planning can help ensure DOD has the proper mix of platforms and a balanced investment portfolio among technology development, acquisitions, production, and sustainment activities, and thereby avoid unnecessary overlap in and duplication of effort. Adding aerostats and airships to the mix of other investments would add to the complexity of planning and oversight of relevant portfolios, but doing so could help to make (1) determinations of how aerostats and airships compare to other efforts and (2) effective trade-off decisions based on their capabilities and costs.

Coordination Efforts Limited Mainly to Technical Collaboration

Since 2007, DOD significantly increased its investment in airship and aerostat efforts, in large part to respond to the urgent warfighter ISR needs in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also to demonstrate LTA technologies and deliver new capabilities. As a result, numerous organizations throughout DOD have pursued aerostat and airship development and acquisition efforts. For example, the Army oversees and manages the GARP testbed, JLENS, LEMV, and some high altitude airship efforts; the Air Force manages TARS; DARPA and the Air Force are responsible for ISIS; the Navy undertook Star Light and is currently responsible for PGSS and AAFL; and the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering is responsible for Project Pelican. Given the wide variety of efforts, DOD has taken some positive steps to coordinate the various aerostat and airship development and acquisition efforts it has underway. However, these efforts have mostly occurred at technical levels where working groups, consisting of technologists from industry and government, collaboratively address technical issues, as opposed to having a higher level authority to ensure coordination is effective. DOD officials identified various examples of these coordination efforts that have taken place among the military services and departments:

The Army formed a working group in which the U.S. Navy Naval Air Systems Command (which manages the PGSS program) participated to develop plans to merge the PGSS and PTDS aerostat rapid fielding initiatives into a Persistence Surveillance Systems-Tethered program of record. This program of record transition is expected to occur in 2014 and should help to ensure effective coordination between the efforts.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Ames Research Center signed an interagency agreement in July 2011 with the DOD Office of the Director of Defense Research and Engineering’s Rapid Reaction Technology Office to develop a prototype airship referred to as Project Pelican. Project Pelican is the U.S. government’s only airship effort to demonstrate ballast-free variable-buoyancy control technology through which the vehicle can control its buoyancy (and therefore go up and down) without the use of ballast and/or ground personnel and ropes. Both agencies agreed to mitigate long-term technical risk by demonstrating this technology. NASA is providing acquisition support services to DOD by overseeing the contractor’s technical efforts and DOD is funding the effort.

The Air Force and DARPA are currently collaborating on the ISIS project. A February 2009 memorandum of agreement between the Air Force and DARPA outlines their respective roles, responsibilities, and development objectives. The project involves developing a large radar aperture that is integrated into the structure of a station-keeping stratospheric airship supporting wide-area persistent surveillance, tracking, and engagement of ground, maritime, air, and space targets. DARPA is providing program management, technical direction, security management, and contracting support. The Air Force is providing resources for program management, demonstration efforts, equipment, and base operations and support. Additionally, the project has used lessons learned from the Army’s HALE-D project, as they are both designed to operate at a high altitude. However, ISIS is unique in that the radar system is integrated into the airship’s platform—the radar is part of the airship structure.

LEMV coordination is occurring among various Army organizations and military services and agencies. For example, the Army obtained lessons learned and best practices for its development of LEMV by leveraging the Navy’s AAFL program and the Army’s HALE-D effort, and the Navy developed flight-to-ground operational procedures for LEMV. Additionally, the Army has had informal coordination with the Blue Devil Block 2 effort in the past. For example, originally both airships had several diesel engine commonalities (they used the same type of engine), and program officials shared challenges and solutions they discovered as part of the process to modify the engines to meet their respective requirements.

The Navy’s AAFL serves as a flying laboratory and risk reduction test- bed for sensors and other components and has assisted the Air Force with its Blue Devil Block 2 airship development. In 2011, the Air Force provided funding to the Navy to provide training to airship pilots to qualify them to fly the Blue Devil Block 2 airship.

While these efforts indicate some military services and organizations are sharing lessons learned and technical solutions, DOD may be able to realize additional opportunities for coordination within the agency and throughout the government. For example, DOD officials told us that coordination between the LEMV and Blue Devil Block 2 projects and opportunities to share lessons learned had been limited because of their concurrent and accelerated development pace. Also, according to a U.S. Central Command official, information sharing between the PTDS and PGSS efforts has been limited, because the efforts are managed by different services, in areas such as test reports and operational impacts resulting from adverse weather. According to this official, better sharing of information could help to inform solutions for making aerostats more survivable. PGSS and PTDS program officials stated that the respective programs have steadily increased information sharing (including daily system status reports, aerostat incident reports, contracting information, budgets, and training programs of instruction) and collaboration on common aerostat issues (such as in-theater force protection for system operators, helium supply priorities, aerostat safety and weather information, and staff and crew tactical training).

Potential Duplication Ended with Termination of Airship Effort

The shortcomings in planning, insight, and collaboration may have made some airship efforts susceptible to duplication. We identified two airship development efforts—LEMV and Blue Devil Block 2—that were potentially duplicative at the time of our review. However, the potential duplication ended when the Air Force terminated the Blue Devil Block 2 program in June 2012. Most of the desired capabilities for LEMV and Blue Devil Block 2 were similar, as shown in table 3. According to DOD officials, these two programs were expected to demonstrate ISR capabilities; however, they are two different types of vehicles with different design objectives. LEMV is a hybrid airship demonstration that is developing a new platform and the Blue Devil Block 2 was a conventional airship that was to place sensors on a mature commercial-based platform. However, both were expected to have the capability to conduct ISR missions at low altitude, and share other operational characteristics. For example, both airships were to operate at the same operational altitude of 20,000 feet, were expected to handle a payload weight capacity of 2,500 pounds, and shared some of the same types of sensors. The two airship efforts also were being developed concurrently and were expected to be deployed to Afghanistan for testing and operations around the same time.

The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 directed the Secretary of Defense to designate a senior official with principal responsibility for DOD’s airship programs. In June 2012, the Deputy Secretary of Defense designated the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering as the senior official who will be responsible for the oversight and coordination of various airship-related programs across DOD. The statutory direction and appointment of the senior official are positive steps, but it is too early to assess the effectiveness of this official’s authorities and responsibilities in integrating and overseeing these activities. As of August 2012, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering was defining the details relating to the authority, scope, and responsibilities of this new position. The overarching direction by the Deputy Secretary of Defense, in accordance with the statutory mandate, provides the senior official with authority over airship-related efforts. Because aerostat efforts respond to some of the same warfighter requirements as airships, such as for persistent ISR, and share some of the same technologies used in airship development efforts, such as materials, design, and fabrication, common oversight of both airships and aerostats could enable DOD to have better visibility over all of its aerostat and airship efforts and help to ensure these efforts are effectively overseen, planned, and coordinated.

While DOD’s overall investment in this area has totaled nearly $7 billion in the past 6 years, near term funding estimates sharply decline beyond fiscal year 2012 and the level of future investment beyond fiscal year 2016 is not known. Until DOD makes the decisions regarding its investments in this area, the proper role of the senior oversight official will not be known. If DOD decides to make significant future investments in aerostat and airship capabilities, the senior official could play a key role in shaping those investments. If no future investments are anticipated, the role of the senior official may necessarily be focused more narrowly on the systems that are fielded or already in development.

Conclusions

Aerostat and airship platforms are not a new concept, but they have recently been embraced in DOD because of their potential to provide continuous coverage capabilities quickly, especially in current military operations. Consequently, numerous organizations throughout DOD have pursued aerostat and airship development and acquisition efforts. DOD quickly initiated some of the larger programs with an eye toward leveraging commercial technologies and delivering capabilities to warfighters quickly to support current operations. But this rush came with high acquisition risk—particularly since there was a lack of knowledge about the amount of modifications and technology development that was required. Moreover, DOD’s limited oversight to ensure coordination of all of these efforts has resulted in ineffective integration of capabilities into broader strategic frameworks and limited investment knowledge and collaboration, making them susceptible to duplication. The appointment of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering as the senior official responsible for the oversight and coordination of various airship-related programs is a positive step, but the role of the position remains to be clearly defined. Yet, the future is uncertain; at this point, no substantive investment is planned for aerostat and airship capabilities. If significant future investment is planned, the senior official could play a valuable role in shaping investments, ensuring they maximize return by integrating them into broader plans so that their capabilities can be leveraged and not unnecessarily duplicative.

Recommendations for Executive Action

To address shortcomings in oversight to improve coordination, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense take the following three actions based on the extent of the department’s future investments in aerostats and airships.

If DOD decides to curtail future investment, focus on ensuring that it has an inventory and knowledge of all current and planned efforts in the short term.

If DOD decides to significantly increase future investment, include aerostat and airship capabilities in strategic frameworks to ensure visibility into and coordination with relevant efforts, guide innovation, and prioritize investments.

Ensure the roles and responsibilities of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, as the senior official responsible for the oversight and coordination of various airship- related programs, are defined and commensurate with the level of future investment.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

We provided a draft copy of this report to DOD, DHS, and NASA for comment. In written comments on a draft of this report, DOD concurred with all three of our recommendations to address shortcomings in oversight to improve coordination of aerostat and airship development and acquisition efforts. DHS and NASA did not have formal comments on the draft report. Additionally, DOD, DHS, and NASA provided technical comments which were incorporated as appropriate.

DOD’s written comments are reprinted in appendix V.

We are sending copies of this report to appropriate congressional committees, the Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security, and the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. In addition, the report will be available at no charge on GAO’s website at http://www.gao.gov.

If you have any questions about this report, please contact me at (202) 512-4841 or chaplainc@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. Key contributors to this report are provided in appendix VI.

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

To determine what key aerostat and airship systems across the federal government are being developed and acquired, including funding, purpose, and status of these systems, we reviewed documentation and interviewed officials on the status and progress of aerostat and airship development efforts in areas such as requirements, funding, costs, budgets, schedule, contracting, technology maturation, and actual or planned operational characteristics. In doing so, we developed an inventory of key airship and aerostat development and acquisition efforts which enabled a comparison of platform types, performance attributes, and costs. As part of identifying the universe of aerostat and airship efforts in the federal government, we interviewed agency officials and asked them about any knowledge they have regarding other systems that may currently exist. We also conducted Federal Procurement Data System—Next Generation (FPDS-NG) database and internet searches to inform ourselves about existing efforts; the internet searches included unclassified searches and background research. We corroborated and confirmed the accuracy of the FPDS-NG and internet search information with applicable agencies. Based on a review of funding data collected from agencies that we contacted as well as from presidential budget estimates and Selected Acquisition Reports as available, we determined that our definition of “key aerostat and airship systems being planned, developed, and acquired” includes two key criteria (1) total funding of $1 million or more from fiscal years 2007 to 2012, and (2) efforts to plan, develop or acquire systems that include both a platform and payload (such as sensors or cargo) capability. We analyzed documentation and interviewed officials from various offices of the Secretary of Defense; various offices within the Army, Navy, and Air Force; U.S. Central Command; Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; Defense Logistics Agency; and offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. We also analyzed documentation and interviewed officials from civil agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and Office of the Director of National Intelligence. We did not examine the development and utilization of lighter-than-air (LTA) technologies outside of the federal government.

To identify any technical challenges these key aerostat and airship efforts may be facing, we analyzed documentation and interviewed officials from the organizations mentioned above. We used the collected information to assess any identified technical problems impacting the funding, cost, schedule, and performance of airships and aerostats.

To determine how effectively the various key aerostat and airship efforts are being overseen to ensure coordination, and identify any potential for duplication, we assessed aerostat and airship investments, acquisitions, capabilities, and operations by analyzing documents and interviewing officials from the organizations listed above, analyzing the inventory of key efforts developed under our first objective, and reviewing prior GAO work for relevant criteria. Specifically, we assessed oversight at the programmatic and enterprise levels by reviewing organizational roles, responsibilities, and authorities as they relate to aerostat and airship development, acquisition, and operations efforts. We also determined the extent to which plans and planning activities integrated aerostat and airship development and acquisition efforts and capabilities within the Department of Defense (DOD). Reviewed plans and planning activities included architectures, roadmaps, investment plans, and requirements development. We also used the information relating to various aspects of the development and acquisition efforts, such as requirements, and actual or planned performance attributes, to assess whether any of the efforts are potentially duplicative.

We conducted this performance audit from June 2011 to October 2012 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide reasonable basis for findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.

Appendix II: Examples of Civil Government Use of Aerostats

Appendix II: Examples of Civil Government Use of Aerostats Purpose and status The purpose of DOC’s NOAA aerostats is to collect wind data up to approximately 1,641 feet above the ground. NOAA procured the aerostats, ground station, and supporting equipment in September 2011.

Over the past 20 years, DOE’s Office of Science has supported a national scientific user facility called the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Climate Research Facility, which is a unique system for continuous observations, capturing fundamental data on atmospheric radiation, cloud and aerosol properties. Since fiscal year 2010, DOE’s Office of Science has funded the use of a contracted aerostat to support research carried out through the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Climate Research Facility.

In 2009 EPA developed a tethered, aerostat-lofted sampling package for the purpose of sampling air emissions from open sources. Multiple aerostats have been purchased to support increasing payloads. EPA’s program has been largely funded through a project with DOD’s Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program to characterize emissions from open burning and open detonation of military ordnance. EPA will continue its emissions monitoring program using aerostats only if it can secure additional funding. Otherwise, the program will cease to exist.

According to NASA, they occasionally fund research that deploys tethered balloons for atmospheric and weather observations. Also, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory continues to use tethered balloons for climate research. NASA plans to continue funding atmospheric and weather research using tethered balloons. For example, in fiscal year 2013, NASA plans to fund atmospheric and weather research that will use two tethered balloons in Yen Bai, Vietnam. Furthermore, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Wallops Flight Facility owns and operates small commercially produced tethered blimps (advertising type) within the restricted airspace over Wallops Island. These aerostat systems are used for visibility markers during range operations and for lifting miniature experimental instrument packages.

Appendix III: DOD Aerostat and Airship Development, Acquisition, and Operations Efforts

Appendix IV: Funding Calculations for Aerostats and Airships, Fiscal Years 2007 through 2016

Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor (JLENS) RDT&E

Rapid Aerostat Initial Development (RAID) Procurement

Effort Tethered Aerostat Radar System (TARS) RDT&E

Appendix V: Comments from the Department of Defense

Appendix VI: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

Cristina T. Chaplain, (202) 512-4841 or chaplainc@gao.gov.

Staff Acknowledgments

In addition to the contact named above, key contributors to this report were Art Gallegos, Assistant Director; Ami Ballenger; Jenny Chanley; Maria Durant; Arturo Holguín; Rich Horiuchi; Julia Kennon; Tim Persons; Sylvia Schatz; Roxanna Sun; and Bob Swierczek.