The Missile Defense Agency’s mission is to develop an integrated and layered BMDS to defend the United States, its deployed forces, allies, and friends. In order to meet this mission, MDA is developing a highly complex system of systems—land, sea and space based sensors, interceptors and battle management. Since its initiation in 2002, MDA has been given a significant amount of flexibility in executing the development and fielding of the BMDS. To enable MDA to field and enhance a missile defense system quickly, the Secretary of Defense in 2002 delayed the entry of the BMDS program into the Department of Defense’s traditional acquisition process until a mature capability was ready to be handed over to a military service for production and operation. Therefore, the program concurrently develops, tests and fields assets. This approach helped MDA rapidly deploy an initial capability. On the other hand, because MDA can field assets before all testing is completed, it has fielded some assets whose capability is uncertain. Because MDA develops and fields assets continuously, it combines developmental testing with operational testing. In general, developmental testing is aimed at determining whether the system design will satisfy the desired capabilities; operational testing determines whether the system is effective, survivable, and suitable in the hands of the user. MDA conducts testing both on the ground and in flight. The most complex of these is an end-to-end flight test that involves a test of all phases of an engagement including detecting, tracking and destroying a target with an interceptor missile. An end-to-end intercept involves more than one MDA element. For example, a recent intercept test involved a target flown out of Kodiak, Alaska, tracked by the AN/TPY-2 radar located in Alaska, and the Beale upgraded early warning radar located in California, the Sea-based X-band radar and an Aegis radar located at different points in the Pacific. All of the radars communicated with fire control centers in Alaska to guide an interceptor launched from California to hit the target over the Pacific Ocean. Due to the complexity, scale, safety constraints, and cost involved, MDA is unable to conduct a sufficient number of flight tests to fully understand the performance of the system. Therefore, MDA utilizes models and simulations, anchored by flight tests, to understand both the developmental and operational performance of the system. To ensure confidence in the accuracy of modeling and simulation the program goes through a process called accreditation. The models are validated individually using flight and other test data and accredited for their intended use. Models and simulations are used prior to a flight test to predict performance, the flight test is then run to gather data and verify the models, and then data is analyzed after the flight and reconstructed using the models and simulations to confirm their accuracy. MDA intends to group these models into system-level representations according to user needs. One such grouping is the annual performance assessment, a system-level end-to-end simulation that assesses the performance of the BMDS configuration as it exists in the field. The performance assessment integrates element-specific models into a coherent representation of the BMDS. Fundamentally, performance assessments anchored by flight tests are a comprehensive means to fully understand the performance capabilities and limitations of the BMDS. In addition to testing, modeling and simulation, and performance assessments, MDA also has a formal process for determining when a newly fielded asset or group of assets can be declared operational—that is, cleared for use by the warfighter in operational situations. MDA uses a variety of information as a basis to assess a new capability for declaration. For example, MDA will define in advance tests, models, and simulations it will use to base a specific decision on whether an asset or capability can be declared ready for fielding. Each capability designation so designated represents upgraded capacity to support the overall function of BMDS in its mission as well as the level of MDA confidence in the system’s performance. To assess testing related progress in fiscal year 2008, we examined the accomplishments of ten BMDS elements that MDA is developing and fielding. Our work included examining documents such as Program Execution Reviews, test plans and reports, and production plans. We also interviewed officials within each element program office and within MDA functional directorates. In addition, we discussed each element’s test program and its results with DOD’s Office of the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation. We also interviewed officials from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics. MDA continues to experience difficulties achieving its goals for testing. During fiscal year 2008, while several tests showed progress in individual elements and some system level capabilities, all BMDS elements experienced test delays or shortfalls. Most were unable to accomplish all objectives and performance challenges continued for many. Table 1 summarizes test results and target performance for the BMDS elements during the year. Because of delays in flight test and a key ground test, MDA was unable to achieve any of the six knowledge points the MDA Director had scheduled for fiscal year 2008. In May 2007, the MDA Director established key system-level and element-level knowledge points, each based on an event that was to provide critical information—or knowledge—for a decision requiring his approval. For example, two knowledge points that MDA had to defer because of testing problems were confirmation of a new target’s performance and assessment of the SM-3 Block 1A missile’s ability to engage and intercept a long range target. GMD in particular continues to experience testing problems and delays. Based on its September 2006 plan, MDA had expected to conduct 7 GMD interceptor flight tests from the start of fiscal year 2007 through the first quarter of fiscal year 2009. MDA however was only able to conduct two, as shown in figure 1. GMD was unable to conduct either of its planned intercept attempts during fiscal year 2008 – FTG-04 and FTG-05. MDA first delayed and then later cancelled the FTG-04 test in May 2008 due to a problem with a telemetry component in the interceptor’s Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle. The cancellation of FTG-04 removed an important opportunity to obtain end-game performance data needed to develop GMD models and to verify the capability of the fielded Capability Enhancement I (CE-I) EKV. Moreover, MDA planned to test the CE-I EKV against a dynamic target scene with countermeasures in both the FTG-04 and FTG-05 flight tests. However, since FTG-04 was cancelled and the target failed to release the countermeasure in FTG-05, the fielded CE-I’s ability against countermeasures still has not been verified. According to MDA no more CE-I EKV flight tests have been approved. The test delays led MDA to restructure its flight test plan for fiscal year 2009, increasing the number of tests, compressing the amount of time to analyze and prepare for subsequent tests, and increasing the scope of individual tests. For example, MDA plans to conduct 14 of 18 flight tests in the third and fourth quarter of fiscal year 2009. Past testing performance raises questions about whether this is realistic. In fiscal year 2008, MDA had planned to conduct 18 flight tests, but it only accomplished 10, and delayed several flight tests into 2009. In the next GMD end-to-end flight test—FTG-06 in fourth quarter fiscal year 2009 to first quarter fiscal year 2010 —MDA is accepting a higher level of risk than it previously expected in conducting this first test of an enhanced configuration of the Kill Vehicle called the Capability Enhancement II (CE-II) because it will include several objectives that had planned to be previously tested, but have not been. For example, the FTG-06 flight test will be the first GMD test assessing both a CE-II EKV and a complex target scene. Adding to the risk, it will be only the second test using a newly developed FTF LV-2 target. Moreover, MDA in January 2008 had merged FTG-06 and FTG-07, thereby eliminating an additional opportunity to gather important information from an intercept. FTG-07 will instead be an intercept test of the two-stage interceptor intended for the European site. Problems with the reliability and availability of targets (which are themselves ballistic missiles) have increasingly affected BMDS development and testing since 2006. As MDA recently acknowledged, target availability became, in some cases, a pacing item for the overall test program. As was noted in Table 1, problems with targets have reduced testing of GMD, Sensors, and THAAD during 2008. Repeated target problems and test cancellations have particularly reduced opportunities to demonstrate the ability of sensors to discriminate the real target from countermeasures. In the mid-course of flight, a more sophisticated threat missile could use countermeasures in an attempt to deceive BMDS radars and interceptor sensors as to which is the actual reentry vehicle. In order to improve the effectiveness of the BMDS against evolving threats, MDA elements are developing advanced discrimination software in their component’s sensors to distinguish the threat reentry vehicle from countermeasures and debris. The cancellation of FTG-04 and subsequent target problems during FTX-03 and FTG-05 prevented opportunities to gather data to test how well discrimination software performs in an operational environment. The current fielded configuration of the GMD kill vehicle has not been tested against countermeasures. To address the growing need for more sophisticated and reliable targets for the future BMDS test program, MDA has been developing a new set of targets called the Flexible Target Family (FTF), which was intended to provide new short, medium, and long-range targets with ground, air, and sea launch capabilities. It was viewed as a family in the sense that the different target sizes and the variants within those sizes would use common components. MDA embarked on this major development without estimating the cost to develop the family of target missiles.