Starting in 1998, night-compatible visible wavelength materials/technologies will be demonstrated for air, sea, and land forces. Specific eye protection prototypes will be available by FY99. Hybrid filter technologies to provide enhanced protection against emerging threats for specific missions will be available by FY02.

Technical barriers include optimized transmittance for visual clarity, operation in haze, environmental durability, ballistic protection, manufacturability, and optical signature reduction.

The program will demonstrate that plasma arc technology can, while operating in a shipboard environment under space and weight constraints, convert shipboard solid waste into an easily storable, benign, nonleachable, solid product which reduces waste volume by a factor of 75 and which meets the Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP) requirements. Specific technical milestones are: by FY97, design, build, and test a prototype plasma eductor feed system to reduce the size of the primary reaction chamber; measure the characteristics of the slag formed from Navy solid waste; develop ceramic/cement electrodes to extend plasma torch operating lifetimes to several hundred hours; and measure the erosion characteristics of high-temperature thermal coatings in a plasma environment. FY98 goals are to design and build a lightweight water-cooled reactor chamber that is insensitive to thermal cycling; design and build a safe and reliable molten slag handling system that is compatible with large pitch-and-roll ship motion; and design, build, and test a safe and reliable system to feed waste into the high-temperature reactor chamber. FY99 goals include conducting full-scale thermal destruction demonstration tests at a solid waste process rate of 425 lb/hr, an average operating cycle of 18 hours per day, and a 50% size and weight reduction compared with commercially available units; demonstrating reduced manning operation and training requirements; determining the effects of the waste stream variability on off-gas pollutants, particulates and trace heavy metals; and demonstrating the thermal destruction of concentrated liquid wastes.

By the end of FY97, materials and processes (M&P) will be developed to enable the demonstration of a 60% increase in thrust-to-weight ratio engine performance. Specific technologies to be demonstrated include ceramic bearings for 1,000°F applications; ceramic matrix composites for 2,500°F non-low-observable nozzles and combustors/augmentors; titanium-based monolithic and metal matrix composite M&P for 1,400°F compressors; and 1,450°F superalloy disks, and 2,200°F advanced intermetallic liners for turbines; and 625°F liquid lubricants.

By FY03, M&P developments will enable a 100% increase in thrust-to-weight ratio engine. Specific technologies to be developed and demonstrated include 3,200°F ceramic matrix composites for non-low observable nozzles and combustors/augmentors; 1,500°F superalloy disks; 1,600°F titanium-based monolithic and metal matrix composite M&P for fans/compressors; 2,500°F advanced intermetallics and 2,800°F ceramic matrix composites for turbines; 700+°F organic matrix composites for fan and ducting applications; and solid lubricant M&P for 700+°F magnetic bearings.

Technical barriers include long-life environmental durability at very high temperatures, high-temperature capability with low-density and balanced engineering properties, oxidation resistance at very high temperatures, affordable processing techniques, improved life prediction methodology, and testing capability.

By FY98, the program will demonstrate enhanced turbine engine disc inspection hardware and software; and an in-flight acoustic emission monitoring system for crack detection and localization. By FY00, the goal is to demonstrate enhanced methods for structural crack and corrosion detection. The FY02 goal is to demonstrate and transition to Navy and Air Force depots wide-area inspection techniques for bondlines, corrosion, delamination, and impact damage. By FY03, the program will transition new structural cracking corrosion detection to Air Force and Navy rework facilities.

Technical barriers include the complexity of upgrading older inspection systems and developing more automated NDE methods to reduce maintenance costs and to increase the probability of defect detection in critical rotating machinery; and developing more portable and flexible thermal excitation subsystems and related hardware and software for data acquisition and manipulation.

By FY98, replacement materials and processes for antenna windows will be available that are moisture resistant and available for flight test by the Air Force SPO. The AF SPO also will integrate both the fuse and the GPS antenna. By FY00, replacement heatshield materials and processes will be available for flight test. (Both of these are form, fit, and function replacements.) Definition of materials aging effects should be available by FY02. This will include an understanding of aging issues and preliminary predictive capability. Replacement materials whose aging phenomenology is well understood and characterized will be available by FY06.

Current ICBM and SLBM reentry vehicle heatshields cannot be fabricated because the rayon fiber precursor is no longer in production. Alternative fibers have different ablation characteristics and thermal/mechanical properties that must be investigated in order to properly design the replacement heatshield. The aging mechanism of current materials is not well understood and needs investigation to ascertain system-level degradation impacts.

By FY99, materials or material systems will be developed for individual combatant protection from small arms threat which will be 40% lighter than current systems; and a 30% weight reduction will be demonstrated in transparent armor materials for face shields and windows with the same protection capability as current systems. By FY04, a 30% weight reduction will be achieved in advanced materials and material systems for armor materials in combat systems.

Technical barriers include the fundamental understanding of monolithic material behavior under extremely hostile environments; the design and synergistic effects of various material systems; interface and interphase effects; manufacturing and fabrication effects on material behavior; and development of material models for simulation.

By FY00, SiC substrates with low defect densities and large defect-free areas will be available. Manufacture of highly uniform SiC layers will be achieved by process control and optimization. Thermally stable SiC electronics will enable on-engine controls critical to the performance of IHPTET Phase III and all future high-performance turbine engines. Magnetic film structures with relative resistance changes of greater than 10% will be optimized. Thermoelectric figures of merit will be improved by a factor of 3, allowing greater than 100°C cooling in three stages or less.

By FY02, processing techniques required to fabricate devices (lithography, etching, etc.) with targeted memory density improvement by a factor of 10 to 100 will be developed.

Stable materials interfaces at elevated temperatures or in the presence of ionizing radiation must be achieved.

In FY97, the program will develop surface cleaning processes for aircraft painting and plating using solid particulate materials, ultraviolet light and activated oxygen, and biodegradable solid media blasting for aluminum surfaces. By FY98, qualify commercial-off-the-shelf low-VOC (volatile organic compound) paints for use on aircraft and missiles. These COTS paints will satisfy the new (1998) environmental requirements for VOC emissions with demonstrated improved performance over current systems. Also by FY98, the program will develop oxygen plasma cleaning processes for oxygen tubing, low-VOC ship paints, chemical agent resistant coatings, and aircraft painting using supercritical CO2 to replace VOCs. The FY99 goal is to field extended durability (5-7 years) aircraft coating systems that meet increasing environmental and safety requirements and do not require repainting between depot maintenance intervals, as well as a fast-drying coating system for ammunition. By FY03, the program will demonstrate a long-life (10-year) ship antifouling coating for reduced drag and 35% maintenance cost savings, and develop a complete coating system for conventional non-low-observable aircraft as an extended life system (30-40-year foundation layer and 8-year topcoat).

Technical barriers include (1) lack of characterization and demonstration of the suitability of current low-VOC paints to meet current military performance criteria; (2) lack of a strong science base describing the interaction of cleaning agents and coatings with new alloys; (3) lack of environmental durability, stain resistance, cleanability, and ultraviolet resistance in gloss/matte coatings with very low organic solvent content; and (4) a lack of understanding of the mechanisms for corrosion of aluminum alloys and for degradation of long-life coatings.

The FY97 milestone is transition of an automated high-pressure waterjet paint stripping capability to OC-ALC reducing hazardous waste by 94% and depaint hours and flow time by 50% for aircraft structures. By FY98, current capability to reverse engineer and produce obsolete avionics microcircuits will be expanded by 85%. By FY99, the reverse-engineering capability will be expanded to include form-fit-function emulations for medium- and large-scale integrated circuits. By FY00, turbine engine blade overhaul costs reductions of $11 million/yr will be demonstrated and the capability to repair thin-walled blades will be established. By FY00, the feasibility of reducing overall depot maintenance cycle time 50% through leveraging the best commercial technologies and practices will be demonstrated. By FY01, sharply enhanced non-destructive inspection (NDI) techniques will be demonstrated for detecting hidden structural corrosion and fatigue damage without aircraft disassembly.

Technical barriers include lack of quantitative NDI techniques for detection and evaluation of hidden corrosion and cracks; lack of tools to reverse engineer obsolete microcircuits to support the design of replacement parts which preserve original design intent; lack of tools to predict the failure of obsolete parts; lack of effective techniques for turbine blade high-cycle fatigue resistance enhancement; lack of effective techniques for thin-walled blade repair to support propulsion overhaul; and lack of existing repair tooling and workload planning geared to batch processing of assets.

^*Non-S&T funds.

Milestones include, by FY97, completing concept definition and validating savings across the entire DoD tactical missile portfolio through cost modeling and simulation; and initiating a series of component- and system-level demonstrations to resolve risks in flexible multiproduct manufacturing. By FY98, the program will demonstrate multimissile component designs, integrated information systems for missile enterprises (including supply chains), and manufacturing facilities that can meet tri-service needs with a single set of technical and business processes. The FY00 goals are to implement at least two cost-shared pilot multimissile enterprises; demonstrate new production methods and flight qualify new hardware for at least two missile systems; demonstrate, at the missile level, the feasibility of reducing the unit cost of ongoing missile production programs by 25%; reduce development and production cost for new missile and major upgrades by 50%; reduce the dependence of unit cost on lot size; and reduce development cycle times by 50%. The FY01 goal is to transition for implementation across the entire missile portfolio.

A key technical barrier is the development of product-line architectures to increase design reuse and parts commonality. Additional challenges are the integration of heterogeneous information systems and processes across missile supply chains; and the development and integration of flexible assembly/test systems for multiproduct production.

The FY97 milestone is to integrate detailed parametric cost models, producibility analyses, and assembly simulations to address cost as an independent variable for missile seekers and other complex assemblies. By FY98, the program will demonstrate a 75% reduction in design and test time for electro-mechanical subsystems through design re-use, supported by the ability to automatically share design rationale in addition to design features. The FY99 goal is to transition a distributed design environment for IPPD in missiles and similarly complex electro-mechanical systems, with the ability to address cost as an independent variable early in conceptual design and achieve highly producible designs in less time. By FY00, demonstrate the ability to explore ten times more alternatives in conceptual design in one-half the time, achieve a 30% reduction in design-to-production transition time for electro-mechanical assemblies, and demonstrate accurate cost estimating tools for conceptual design. By FY01, the goal is to demonstrate a 30% reduction in time and cost to integrate mechanical and electrical designs.

Technology barriers being attacked include the lack of methods and standards to integrate design and analysis tools and to capture and communicate design intent; methods and tools for accurate cost and producibility analyses at all design stages; the ability to simulate the downstream effects of design decisions early in the concept phase; and methods and tools to integrate process capability and factory capacity data into the design process.

In FY97, the program will demonstrate a tenfold improvement in cost per axis (goal: $500/axis) for tactical grade IFOGs while maintaining system performance requirements in completed gyros; and develop large-throughput robotic assembly packaging and testing technologies necessary to fabricate navigation grade (0.01 deg/hr) IFOGs at less than $1,500/axis, for accurate (1 nmi/hr) inertial navigators. The FY98 goal is to demonstrate from the same production line flexible fabrication of navigation grade, military tactical grade (0.1-1.0 deg/hr) IFOGs and lower performing commercial IFOGs. The program will leave in place a residual base of manufacturing capabilities to meet the production goal of low-cost ($15,000) precision navigation systems.

Technical barriers include labor-intensive manufacturing steps such as fiber-winding, optical interconnections, and testing; providing affordable optical sources; lowering fiber production costs and providing low-cost environmentally robust packaging; and integrating manufacturing systems to provide a flexible multiple-grade integrated process/production line for tactical and navigation grade IFOGs.

^*Non-S&T funds.

Specific milestones include, in FY99, demonstrated assembly and connection in open seas (at sea state 3—previously limited to SS1+) of ACBL platforms for an advanced modular causeway lighterage, increasing structural efficiency by 300%, and bending moment resistance by 20%. This DTO will also demonstrate the feasibility of increasing operational availability in projected LIC/MIC scenarios in high sea state regions, such as the Far East, from the present 15-day limitation to 25 days, while increasing cargo capacity from one M1A3 Abrams Tank to three. By FY00, the goal is to reduce pile cutting time from 20 minutes to under 5 minutes for ELCAS installations, using 300% less manpower, with a maintainable plasma arc system easily handled without the use of construction cranes. By FY01, the program will demonstrate feasibility of the plasma arc tool to reduce pile splicing times from 60 minutes to under 5 minutes with the same reduced manpower criteria and ease of use and maintainability. By FY01 the goal is to demonstrate the capability to reduce from 1 week to 48-hours on-site ELCAS geotechnical pre-installation surveys by directly correlating acoustic impedance and attenuation patterns to required soil properties.

Specific technical barriers include wave-induced motion simulation of modules floating in proximity, and connection systems with relative motion compensation and large force attenuation; load testing and modeling simulations via virtual prototyping; plasma arc cutting and splicing; mechanical gripping and finite element analysis; acoustic reflections of near-shore sub-bottoms correlated with ground-truth soil classification profiles; and multifrequency acoustic transmissions correlations with soil properties.

In FY99, the program will demonstrate a fivefold cost-effective lightweight, high-strength, collapsible, continuous spiral woven fuel bladder prototype of 500-, 5,000-, and 15,000-gal meeting pressure and load requirements for LCAC delivery from 25 miles offshore within the 30-minute load/offload LCAC cycles. It will establish the feasibility of constructing a 50-in diameter seamless three-dimensional woven sleeve with replaceable liner (100-gal capacity/ft length) with a 60-psi burst strength low-elasticity bladder with a minimal footprint of 7 psi; and demonstrate deployment and ease of operator handling aboard an LCAC of two 5,000-gal systems in an ISO package (dry-8' x 8' x 20'). By FY01, the program will demonstrate 100% improved bulk liquid transfer containerized transfer systems for quick offload to maneuver elements, and establish the feasibility of utilizing 67% lighter weight, improved tear resistant packaging concepts.

Technical barriers include applying combined simultaneous spiral and helical weaving technology to high strength bladders; thin membrane performance modeling; composite structural analysis; materials properties, shelf life and fatigue testing, abrasion-resistant-oriented fibers; and surge suppression and explosion effects modeling.

Milestones include development of new airmobile shelter systems that reduce weight by 50%, thermal losses by 100%, costs by 20%, and setup time by 50%, and use innovative geometric designs and lightweight high-performance composites. Near-term shelter systems will be demonstrated by FY97, and advanced designs by FY03. The program will develop lightweight generators to exploit advanced permanent magnet disk and rotary-engine technologies, resulting in reduction of weight and volume by 50%; mobile heat pump units based on acoustic cycle technology to reduce weight by 50%, volume by 40%, and increase efficiencies by 30%; and demonstrate the bare base generator by FY97. The FY99 goal is to develop lightweight heat pump increasing efficiencies and further reduce weight and volume. New technologies will advance waste disposal systems by FY01; solid oxide fuel cells and environmentally clean alternate fuel systems by FY02; and large low-signature shelters by FY06. Reduced logistics needs for bare base operations will greatly enhance the mobile warfighting capability and reduce costs for contingency operations.

Technical barriers for shelters include optimization of composite materials for panels and connection systems, inflatable shelter materials, and self-erecting mechanical frame concepts. The major technical barrier for the lightweight generator is developing high-speed, high-voltage switching devices required to generate reliable 4,160-V power. The mobile heat pump's technical barrier is the design of acoustic pulse-tube cycle to best eliminate the need for conventional evaporators and condensers.

Firefighting research will develop advanced firefighting agents, equipment, and techniques required by DoD to effectively combat aircraft, shipboard, fixed and mobile weapon systems, facility, munitions plant, and hazardous materials fires. This research includes exploring new capabilities; cryogenic technology for improved firefighter body cooling and breathing air; machine vision and dual-spectrum ultraviolet/infrared for ultra fast and reliable fire detection; exploitation of advanced automation and navigation technologies for crash fire rescue vehicles for effective inclement weather crash rescue response; and virtual reality technology for more effective safe firefighter training systems.

By FY97, the program will demonstrate enhanced large-frame aircraft firefighting capabilities, a fine water mist ship fire suppression system, and an ultra fast water deluge fire suppression system for DoD munitions plants. The FY99 goal is to develop replacements for Halon 1211 and AFFF firefighting agents and a hypergolic fuel vapor detection/fire suppression system for space-lift facilities. By FY02, the program will develop a day-night/all-weather emergency response fire crash rescue capability, a virtual reality firefighter training system, and next-generation aircraft fuel fire suppression agent.

Technical barriers include the synthesis of new, more effective fire suppressant compounds that can more rapidly extinguish new weapon system materials and fuel fires yet be environmentally and toxicologically safe both in the neat form and in combination with combustion products produced during the extinguishing process.

Note: Totals may not add due to rounding.

Technical demonstrations and goals include technical feasibility and cost benefit analysis of non-thermal plasma (FY97); regenerative sorbents (FY97) and advanced catalysis (FY99) to reduce NOx emissions by 90% from jet engine test cells, aerospace ground equipment, and jet aircraft; and risk-based atmospheric emission decision tools to improve space launch vehicle availability by 50% (FY00). Together, these air quality technologies achieve $250 million of annual cost avoidance and avoid decreased or interrupted operations tempo. Technical demonstrations for solid and liquid wastes include advanced oxidation (FY97); reductive electrochemical processes and advanced chemical reactors (FY00); and biotechnology for treating wastes from the manufacturing and disposal of propellants, explosives, and pyrotechnics (PEP) and complex industrial hazardous wastes (FY02). These technologies will reduce current annual hazardous waste disposal costs by up to 50% ($75 million in FY95).

Technical barriers to be addressed include the economical and energy-efficient chemical and physical separation of complex of waste streams; process optimization using variable concentration waste streams; nonthermal destruction of recalcitrant wastes; the instability of highly energetic materials; and the destruction or conversion of waste and contaminants without the production of unwanted toxic byproducts.

^*Non-S&T funds.

By the end of FY98, the program will provide reliable airfields and pavements to support current generation of military and Civilian Reserve Air Force aircraft and vehicles through the use of local materials, which may be of inferior quality, and pavement binder modifications, resulting in a 10% reduction in construction and maintenance cost. This objective will require new technologies for material characterization, specifically in nonlinear visco-elastic and visco-plastic behavior and how that behavior affects airfield and pavement performance. By the end of FY99, the goal is to provide construction/design/repair systems to decrease construction effort by 10% for expedient surfaces in TO for military aircraft and vehicles. The FY02 goal is to provide reliable airfields and pavements to support multiple passes of proposed future generation aircraft.

Technical barriers include the need for a better understanding of multiple tire interaction, dynamic loading, and linear and nonlinear material response to those loadings. Specific aircraft that can damage airfields include C-141, C-17, and the proposed million-pound aircraft. Vertical/short takeoff and landing aircraft also pose a significant problem. In general, aircraft loads will continue to increase, but the landing gear for proposed cargo aircraft will remain similar to the Boeing 777 configuration. Larger landing gear are not desirable because they consume too much of the cargo space. Therefore, load per tire and tire pressures will continue to increase, resulting in the need for airfields with an increased load carrying capability. The results of the research will increase the functional life of airfields and pavements by 10 years, resulting in a 20% reduction in maintenance costs and a 10% reduction in construction costs.

FY98 milestones include advanced sensors and samplers for on-site, real-time detection/ monitoring with a 50% cost savings over FY95 monitoring well/analytical laboratory processes; and ex situ bioremediation for explosives/energetics and in situ biological treatment processes concept guidance reducing cost or enhancing cleanup efficacy by 50%. FY99 milestones include an environmental risk assessment framework reducing cleanup design costs by 20%; and rapid detection and in situ treatment of DNAPL reducing costs by 50%. The goal for FY00 is a multisensor/multispectral array for remote detection of surface/subsurface unexploded ordnance with a cost saving of 35%. FY01 goals are fate and transport models/simulations integrating earth media providing rapid contaminant fate predictions, assessing on-site risks, and reducing design costs by at least 30%; and an in situ heavy metals extraction and treatment below existing structures reducing costs for lead removal from $100-300/ton to $50-150/ton. The goals for FY02 include advanced visualization supporting on-site assessment during all cleanup phases reducing data analysis and treatment selection time by 50%; and increased efficacy and flexibility of advanced groundwater remediation for TNT and other energetic materials with an overall cost reduction of $1-5/kgal in FY95 to $0.10-2.00/kgal.

Technical barriers include site heterogeneity (soil, water, and climate); the large number, varying concentrations, state of mixing, and unmapped contaminants encountered at cleanup sites; the inherent complexity of biological, chemical and physical phenomena and technologies; the density and opaqueness of earth media; and differing views of acceptable risk held by local regulators and stakeholders.

^*Non-S&T funds.

By FY98, the program will demonstrate the feasibility of using composite structural upgrades to uniformly increase pier load capacity by 40%; and show capacity increases up to 750 per ft², a 300% gain, in supporting 100,000-lb maximum load mobile cranes, at 20% the cost of demolishing and replacing with a new structure. The FY99 goal is to demonstrate a 100% improvement in determining forces for berthing ship-composite fender interactions. By FY00, the program will demonstrate the feasibility of utilizing sacrificial titanium-sprayed corrosion arrestment techniques to extend the service life of reinforced concrete waterfront facilities by 20-30 years.

Technical barriers include pseudo-ductile load response of composite components and concrete hybrid structures; modeling polymer matrix/fiber interface behavior and slip; modeling concrete substrate deterioration from galvanic cells activated by prior repair work; modeling transient viscous flows; nonlinear surface effects; pile-soil interaction from lateral and seismic forces; corrosion stabilization of steel reinforcement using arc-sprayed titanium film applied anodes; and bio-effects data collection for composite structural members.

Milestones for missile seekers include, by FY97, demonstrating a process capability index (Cpk) of 1.33 for linear cooler manufacturing; developing nondestructive evaluation capability for IR arrays for Javelin; and demonstrating a 20% cost reduction in MM Wave Transceiver manufacturing for Longbow. By FY98, the objective is to demonstrate a repeatable rugate protective coating process for windows and domes with a rapid cycle capability of 21 days from design to first article. For radar components, the goal is to demonstrate a 3:1 cost reduction for Aegis T/R module manufacturing though high-density interconnects by FY01. The FY97 goal for space systems (DSP, SBIR, DSCS) is to demonstrate high-yield manufacturing of multiple bandgap solar cells at Cpk of 1.33 for 2 x 2 cm cells, and 4 x 4 cm cells by FY99, increasing power by 50% at costs comparable to single junction solar cells.

The commercial electronics industry has developed high-volume capability, and the challenge is to adapt it for low-volume, complex parts mix. Specific barriers include high first-time yield for high-performance military environment; high-process capability for low volumes; appropriate statistical process control tools and implementation approaches; and open architectures to support the extended life cycles of weapon systems.

^*Non-S&T funds.

Special material milestones include developing an induction heat treating process to fabricate dual hard steel from single plate of steel armor and provide for an 80% reduction in production cost (FY98), and demonstrating a manufacturing process for cast Gamma TiAl engine structures that will allow for up to a 40% weight reduction in major components (FY01). Processing methods milestones include reducing cutting tools spindle chatter by 25%; introducing the use of titanium metal structures at 60% of the weight of steel; and demonstrating ultra machining technologies for larger components/systems that result in reductions in number of components (15%), parts count (40%), cycle time (50%), weight (10%), and cost (15%) (FY00). Joining milestones include developing gas tungsten arc welding fluxes to increase weld penetration by a factor of 2 to 4, reducing weld time, distortion and simplifying joint preparation (FY97); and implementing a programmable automated welding system in Navy shipyards to provide a 30-50% cost reduction (FY98).

No heat treating process exists to fabricate dual hard steel from single plate of steel armor; affordable manufacturing process needs to be developed to realize the benefits for Gamma TiAl engine structures; machine tool spindle vibration limits the capabilities of reduced machining time cycles; there is distortion in welded structures and lack of automation in naval shipyards; and multiaxis vibration testing of fuses requires long test cycles and high test equipment costs.

FY97 milestones include fabricating and testing two multifunctional radome prototypes for the F-22 demonstrating a 50% reduction in span time, a 39% reduction in acquisition cost, and improved quality (reduced variability); and demonstrating a 50% cost reduction in the production of selected aircraft structures for the F/A-18E/F. By FY98, the program will complete fabrication of the second composite armored vehicle ATD hull and begin testing to validate performance, weight, and cost goals. The FY99 goal is to demonstrate revolutionary design and manufacturing technologies on a fighter aircraft demonstrator to quantify cost and performance improvements. By FY00, the program will demonstrate initial tools and methodologies for national industrial base. By FY01, the goal is to characterize and mature resin transfer molding and fiber placement technologies with the goal of achieving Cp of 2 and Cpk of 1.5 to improve cost quality and reliability for systems applications such as F-22, RAH-66, F/A-18F/F, and JSF.

Technical barriers include the lack of effective design cost and manufacturing tools and practices for composites; lack of integrated databases to support design; and a poor understanding of process capability shortfalls and cost drivers.

^*Non-S&T funds.

FY97 milestones include demonstrating a 70% reduction in order issuance time at Ogden ALC, and validating the potential $2.5 billion life-cycle cost savings on JSF by advanced process planning and machine tool programming technologies. By FY98, the program will demonstrate a 20% reduction in in-process inventories in electronic connectors production, and 40% production cycle time reduction at Rock Island Arsenal by integrating scheduling with shop floor tracking systems and advance scheduling technologies. The FY99 goal is to demonstrate a potential 50% reduction in time to transition new machined parts design to production through new machine tool models and integrating them with programming technologies. By FY01, the program will demonstrate a 50% reduction in supply chain management costs through business systems integration throughout supply chains; and demonstrate a 50% reduction in lead time and inventory for military uniforms by fully integrating digital recruit measurements with automated factory planning and scheduling applicable to custom garment fabrication.

Technology barriers being attacked include the inability to interoperate manufacturing and technical information systems within and among manufacturing and repair facilities, inability to rapidly access weapon system product data essential to technical data packages for repair and reprocurement, and lack of electronic commerce capabilities usable and affordable by the small firms that compose most of the supplier base.

Test results from the composite divert and attitude control system bulkhead will be ready for evaluation by the Theater High-Altitude Area Air Defense (THAAD) Program Office in FY97. A composite battery box and a bulkhead with integrated sensor pedestal for the PAC-2 interceptor have been fabricated. Weight savings of 40% or more have already been demonstrated for these two components. Evaluation of these PAC-2 components will be completed in FY97. Fabrication of a PAC-3 gimbal post and electronics is being planned for FY97; evaluation will be completed in FY98. An aeroshell for the seeker electronics with integrated electromagnetic shielding will be fabricated for PAC-3 in FY97. Testing of braided carbon-carbon vectorable rocket nozzles with low-cost composite flex seals will continue in FY97-98. Fabrication of a composite aft flare and other components for the THAAD booster are planned for completion in FY97 with evaluation planned for FY98.

Technical barriers include high-strength/high-stiffness carbon fibers that allow fabrication of interceptor structures with natural vibration frequency approaching 600 Hz, important for achieving hit-to-kill accuracy. Cost and weight savings more than 25% over baseline (typically machined aluminum) have already been demonstrated for several composite missile components. The primary technical challenges that remain are to demonstrate and evaluate fabrication and performance of interceptor components with the new high-strength, high-stiffness, high-strain to failure fibers; and to demonstrate which of several competing fabrication processes will provide repeatable components within the narrow statistical band needed to achieve technology insertion.