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Committee shifts NLOS R&D funding to Navy

Anticipating and encouraging the Navy’s takeover of the Non-Line of Sight Launch System program, the House Armed Services air and land forces subcommittee transfers $75 million in research and development funding for the program from the Army to the Navy in its markup of the defense authorization bill for 2011, according to congressional documents.

Citing the Army’s decision to cancel NLOS-LS, the subcommittee cuts the $350.6 million the Army requested for procurement of NLOS-LS in 2011 and the $81.2 million in research and development funds.

According to a congressional source, the House Armed Services seapower and expeditionary forces subcommittee’s markup will also include the additional $75 million for the Navy to complete NLOS-LS development.

Although the Army decided in April to recommend canceling the NLOS-LS program, Pentagon acquisition executive Ashton Carter has yet to make a final decision on the acquisition category 1 program. Originally part of the Army's Future Combat Systems program, NLOS-LS also is intended for the Navy's Littoral Combat Ship.

An excerpt from the subcommittee’s markup report notes the Army decision to cancel the program in April.

“However, the committee is concerned that the Army chose to terminate a program that had been touted for years as a key element in improving the lethality of light infantry brigades,” the language reads. “The committee is also concerned that the Army is walking away from a $1.0 billion investment in research and development for this system.”

The Army’s decision to recommend Carter cancel the program came after a series of poor test results and the service’s completion of a precision-fires portfolio review. The NLOS-LS Precision Attack Missile failed to hit its target four out of six times during a flight-limited user test at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., between Jan. 26 and Feb. 5. The Army determined that fixing the system’s problems would delay the program more than a year and keep it from being included in the first brigade set of Increment 1 equipment of the Brigade Combat Team-Modernization program.

The cost of the system’s missile had also become a key concern. There are two major components to NLOS-LS: the Precision Attack Missile built by Raytheon and the Lockheed Martin Container Launch Unit.

In the Army's budget request for 2011, each Precision Attack Missile costs $466,000. Both the service and industry expected that, once the missile reached full-rate production, that number would fall.

“While the committee understands the need for the Army to reduce redundancy and fund other priorities, the committee believes that in this case the Army could have extended the engineering and manufacturing development phase for another year at a modest cost,” the subcommittee writes in its report.

“This extension could have at least provided the Army with more options for procuring different versions of the missile, perhaps at a lower unit price,” the report says.

Earlier this month, Michele Lohmeier, deputy vice president of Land Combat at Raytheon, said the company could deliver a range of missiles that vary in capability and cost, including a fully capable round with the dual-mode seeker for $150,000. However, that price still depends on the Army buying 9,942 missiles.

The committee directs the secretary of the Army to provide a report to the congressional defense committees by Feb. 1 on how the service can use some of the technology developed under NLOS-LS in the future.