Debate Over Testing of MX : Confident Missile Is Accurate, Air Force May Scrap Last 2 Trials--but Congress Isn’t Sure

The Air Force, told by its missile experts that the MX intercontinental missile has proven itself successful, is considering whether to cancel two final test flights, but two powerful congressional committees may object to the plan.

The Air Force’s Ballistic Systems division in San Bernardino conducted the 18th test launch of the strategic missile--designed to carry 10 nuclear weapons--in March and concluded that it is accurate enough to make two planned final tests unnecessary, a spokesman said Wednesday.

An internal recommendation to that effect was submitted to Air Force headquarters after the March test but has yet to be acted upon. In the meantime, no further testing has been scheduled.

Each MX missile costs an estimated $85 million, but the two test missiles are already built and eliminating the test would not save that money. But Air Force spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Glickman said the two missiles could save money if they are used to help develop a proposed MX basing system using railroad cars.

Congressional officials question the assertion that the MX has been successful and say they doubt that the missile has been fully proven. The two committees held four hearings during 1987 and 1988 to investigate alleged shortcomings in the missile and in the performance of Northrop Corp., which builds a key element of the MX’s guidance system.

“Based on what we have seen of that weapon system, I think further testing is required,” said Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, adding that he has assigned committee investigators to begin looking into the plan to discontinue testing.

But Glickman, the Air Force spokesman, asserted: “Never before has the Air Force had a program as successful as this one.” He noted that the plan to suspend testing would affect only developmental testing, in which the missile is launched toward Kwajalein atoll in the western Pacific from Vandenberg Air Force Base north of Santa Barbara.

The Strategic Air Command, which operates the 50 MX missiles deployed at Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, plans to begin next month its own operational tests of the missile. “We are not losing the ability to gather data,” Glickman said.

Operational testing is fundamentally different from developmental testing. Operational testing tries to confirm whether a weapon is effective, whereas developmental testing attempts to prove that various systems work properly and the concept is valid.

A House Armed Services Committee staff member said Wednesday that it is not yet clear whether the operational tests would be an adequate substitute for the canceled tests. The committee has asked for a report on the issue. A Dingell committee staff member said the operational tests will probably not answer the continuing doubts about the MX program.

The recommendation to suspend the testing comes at a potentially bad time, because the Navy has just discovered a major design defect on its Trident II nuclear missile after 20 successful test launches, the staff member on the House Armed Services Committee noted. If the Navy needed 20 flights to uncover a major flaw, the staffer asked, why should the Air Force suspend testing after only 18 flights?

Although there have been 18 tests of the missile, a dozen tests used a prototype or research guidance system rather than the production configuration parts used in operational missiles. Moreover, the later tests that used the production guidance system were not as accurate as the earlier tests, according to congressional testimony in June, 1987.

“You want to remember that they ran 12 tests and then accuracy began to fall off,” Dingell noted. “The first 12 tests were systems that were essentially all handmade. As they moved into production systems, the accuracy began to decline rather startlingly.”

But Glickman responded: “When we talk about a loss of accuracy, we are not talking about a total degradation. That is not unusual when you go from development to production hardware.”

The decision to suspend testing also seems to fly in the face of the recommendations of a scientific panel. A report in October, 1987, by an Air Force scientific advisory board, which was appointed to investigate alleged problems with the missile, gave Northrop a qualified endorsement and found the MX to be “remarkably accurate,” even though it had experienced a worsening accuracy record.

Despite the endorsement, the board said, “It is also essential that flight testing continue at the planned level.”

The issues raised by the Air Force’s recommendation to cancel the MX tests renews many issues that first surfaced in 1987 and 1988, focusing on whether the MX is a good missile that got a bum rap or a problem missile produced under flawed management.

Northrop produces a critical guidance device for MX, called an inertial measurement unit, and was harshly criticized for its failure to stay on schedule and for a number of highly irregular practices at its Hawthorne factory, including the purchase of MX parts outside government-approved channels. It was behind schedule for five years and repeatedly failed Air Force audits and reviews of its performance.

Ultimately, Northrop replaced virtually all of the senior management in its MX program, invested heavily in improving its processes and caught up with its delivery schedule. It insists to this day that the guidance systems are reliable and exceed Air Force requirements.

Ahead of Schedule

Northrop spokesman Tony Cantafio said Wednesday that the company is two units ahead of schedule and is meeting or exceeding the Air Force’s requirements on reliability for its guidance system. But Dingell, a longstanding Northrop critic, still takes aim at the firm.

“If you look at the history of Northrop, they haven’t produced a single weapon system that has come through below cost, on time and that has in fact worked as it was supposed to,” Dingell said. “We are not the only people criticizing this missile. People have stood in line to criticize it.”

Cantafio dismissed the criticism out of hand, citing the company’s successful performance on the F-5 jet fighter, F-18 jet fighter and Boeing 747 fuselage programs.