Test And Evaluation Support Budget Authority

Abstract

The Bomber Armament Tester will ensure that our USAF bomber fleet can conduct nuclear deterrence, global power projection and global strike operations to support the President of the United States and Combatant Commanders by providing a reliable, cyber secure, and sustainable tester. The tasks are to develop a common bomber armament tester and the Test Program Sets (Software, Hardware, and Documentation) to test the armament release equipment on the bombers. RDT&E efforts support development, testing, and producibility of the Bomber Armament Tester and Test Program Sets. The program will utilize an incremental development approach with B-2 as Increment 1, B-1 as Increment 2, and B-52 as Increment 3. The Common Aircraft Portable Reprogramming Equipment (CAPRE) Secure Memory Loader Verifier (SMLV) is a secure common memory loader verifier that loads operational flight programs to the weapon systems. . CAPRE leads the fleet on Cyber initiatives and is government owned and developed. CAPRE supports 32 USAF weapon systems including but not limited to A-10, B-1, B-52, C-5, C-17, C-130, CV-22, F-15, F-16, H-60 and KC-46. RDT&E effort includes developing a Network Interface Module (NIM) that provides additional cyber hardening to the CAPRE system and redesigning the current CAPRE system to adapt to the NIM. RDT&E effort also includes software development for NIM interfaces and new weapons systems moving to the CAPRE system from other MLV systems. The goal is to provide one common cyber secure MLV for the Air Force that minimizes cyber vulnerabilities in weapon systems. The Common Armament Tester-Fighter (CAT-F) provides acquisition workforce to execute new workload associated with implementation of cyber secure common armament ATS solution resulting in significant reduction in logistics footprint, reduced sustainment cost and improved testing availability for nuclear & conventional missions. This will allow for a common reliable, cyber resilient, nuclear certified and sustainable armament tester for the USAF Combat Fighter Aircraft (A-10, F-15, F-16, F-22 and MQ-9 Platforms). Currently there are 14 unique testers supporting six fighter aircraft; 1009 total testers, $10M annually to sustain with each tester having its own life cycle program management support structure. Availability or current testers averages 60%; legacy preload testers for A-10 & F-16 cannot check MIL-STD-1760. RDT&E efforts support development, testing, and ability to produce the Common Armament Tester Fighter and Test Program Sets. This program element may include necessary civilian pay expenses required to manage, execute, and deliver Automatic Test Systems Program Office weapon system capability. The use of such program funds would be in addition to the civilian pay expenses budgeted in program elements 0605826F, 0605827F, 0605828F, 0605829F, 0605830F, 0605831F, 0605832F, and 0605898F." This program element also includes program administrative cost for the Automatic Test Systems program office and funds the cost of studies and research to support the Automatic Test Systems fleet. This program is in Budget Activity 5, System Development and Demonstration (SDD) because it has passed Milestone B approval and is conducting engineering and manufacturing development tasks aimed at meeting validated requirements prior to full rate production.

Document Details

• Document Type: Project
• Publication Date: Oct 01, 2021
• Source ID: 6506TE_0701212F_5_3600_PB_2021

Tags

Readers

• Aerospace Engineering
• Cybersecurity.
• Naval Mine Countermeasure Systems Development.

Technology Areas

• Cyber