A. Mission Description and Budget Item Justification: The Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition and Technology) and the Army Acquisition Executive (AAE) directed the establishment of the Aerostat Joint Project Office (JPO) for Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense (LACMD) and directed the funding for FY 96-01. This is a multiservice effort with the Army as the lead service. The Aerostat JPO is assigned to the AAE with operational control assigned to the U. S. Army Space and Strategic Defense Command. The program mission is to maximize the battle space of land, sea and air based missile systems by providing Over-the-Horizon (OTH) surveillance and precision track for broad area defense against land attack cruise missiles. Aerostats are theater based systems employing advanced technologies with specific focus on LACMD. Aerostat sensors provide the OTH surveillance/precision tracking for the Air Directed Surface to Air Missile (ADSAM) concept. The role of the aerostat is to expand the battlefield commander’s surveillance and engagement capability against cruise missiles and other low flying aircraft by extending the battle space for systems such as Patriot, Medium Extended Air Defense System/Corps SAM, Aegis and Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM). This project supports upgrades to existing surveillance and tracking systems and is appropriately placed in Budget Activity 7.

Acquisition Strategy: The Aerostat JPO executed a Concept Studies Phase by soliciting CMD architecture concepts that employ aerostats. The most promising concept(s), up to 2, will be carried to a subsequent phase for design and risk mitigation of the aerostat system. The government will downselect at contract award (1st Qtr FY98), at the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) or at the Critical Design Review (CDR). Risk reduction activities will include testbed type activities and/or testing at the component level. Risk reduction activities are being conducted in parallel by DARPA and Other Government Agencies (OGAs) to mitigate technical and operation risk areas. Testbed and modeling/simulation activities support the risk mitigation effort. One prototype aerostat system will be developed utilizing the design and risk

mitigation effort and products.

Change Summary Explanation:

Funding: FY 96 - Congressional reprogramming request (12993), Congress approved $4000.

FY 97 - Congressional reduction (-12000) during appropriation markup

Futher reduction (-564) reprogrammed to higher priority programs.

Schedule: Funding reductions required restructuring of the acquisition strategy. The concept definition phase will extend through 3rd qtr FY 97. ACTD risk mitigation/design contract will be awarded in 1st qtr FY 98. The acquisition strategy allows downselect at contract award, PDR, or CDR. Decision will be dependent upon maturity of technology. One prototype aerostat system will be completed and delivered in FY02.

*Denotes completed milestone

**Efforts are/will be on-going. Will be denoted by an asterisk when completed.

Government Furnished Property: None