Unmanned Aircraft Systems: New DoD Programs Can Learn from Past Efforts to Craft Better and Less Risky Acquisition Strategies

Abstract

Through 2011, the Department of Defense (DOD) plans to spend $20 billion to significantly increase its inventory of unmanned aircraft systems, which are providing new intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and strike capabilities to U.S. combat forces - including those in Iraq and Afghanistan. Despite their success on the battlefield, DOD's unmanned aircraft programs have experienced cost and schedule overruns and performance shortfalls. Given the sizable planned investment in these systems, GAO was asked to review DOD's three largest unmanned aircraft programs in terms of cost. Specifically, GAO assessed the Global Hawk and Predator programs' acquisition strategies and identified lessons from these two programs that can be applied to the Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems (J-UCAS) program, the next generation of unmanned aircraft.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 01, 2006
Accession Number
AD1152286

Entities

People

  • Michael J. Sullivan

Organizations

  • United States Government Accountability Office

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Autonomy

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acquisition
  • Air Force
  • Aircrafts
  • Airframes
  • Anti-Tank Missiles
  • Best Practices
  • Carrier Based Aircraft
  • Combat Operations
  • Congress
  • Department Of Defense
  • Law
  • Lessons Learned
  • Military Operations
  • Procurement
  • Product Development
  • Prompt Global Strike
  • Systems Engineering
  • Test And Evaluation
  • United States Government
  • Unmanned Aerial Systems
  • Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
  • Unmanned Systems
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Government Contracting/Procurement.
  • Life Cycle Cost Analysis
  • Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) Autonomous Capabilities and Mission Reconnaissance.

Technology Areas

  • Autonomy
  • Autonomy - UAVs