On 21 March 1989 the USS Tennessee (SSBN-734) was at launch depth off the coast of Florida, her crew at battle stations-missile for the first developmental underwater flight test of the new Trident II D-5 missile. The only clue to the Tennessee’s location was her exposed telemetry antenna. The range was declared clear, and the countdown was under way. Conditions were perfect. Water cross-flow at the deck was near zero—thought to be the most benign launch condition. The missile was launched on schedule.
The 130,000-pound projectile headed for the surface at more than 60 miles per hour, and within seconds of it becoming airborne radio communications from the nearby support ship asked, “Are you all right? Are you all right?” The Tennessee responded, “Yes, what is the problem?” The response was devastating: “The missile cleared the surface, ignited, did several loops, was auto-destructed and landed right on top of your location!” Within minutes the entire Navy Strategic Systems Program office (SSP) and contractor team went to general quarters to determine what happened, why it happened, and how to correct whatever the problem was. Videos and still photos of the flight failure were featured on TV and in many newspapers; the avalanche of questions was under way.
With 35 years of experience developing and supporting five Fleet ballistic missile (FBM) systems the SSP-contractor team quickly identified the failure mode, but not the specific cause. The first-stage nozzle’s mechanical-control hardware had failed after the missile left the submarine, which created an unguided missile; it had no nozzle direction-control. The failure of that relatively straightforward hardware problem was good news, because it would be an easier fix than one involving the entire guidance-control system. But what had caused the failure? How could a fix be checked—on the ground, not at sea—and provide any level of assurance, given the lack of an available land-based launch-test facility? The pressure was on to resolve the technical issues and get back on schedule. Politicians in Washington, meanwhile, had some issues of a totally different nature.
The Trident II program at the time was in the transition from development to production. Long-lead production items were in the pipeline, and all that remained in development was a series of underwater launches to verify performance. Additionally, follow-on Trident SSBNs were in the final stages of delivery, and Fleet schedules were depending on their availability for deterrent patrols. So this failure had occurred at the worst possible time in the program.
The Fix
One way to confirm the first-stage nozzle failure would be to conduct actual launches of dummy missiles. But the only test facility capable of handling that had been mothballed for more than 15 years. The cost and time involved to take the old launching facility out of storage would create havoc with the Trident II program cost and schedule. It was time to be creative in a Rube Goldberg sort of way; the SSP-contractor team came up with inexpensive and quick solutions, assembling a launch facility out of unusual materials.
The first step was creating a horizontal water cannon, welding about ten 55-gallon drums together on the ground, then placing a mechanism on one end to force water out the other end. That simulated the water jet to impact a dummy first-stage motor next to the barrels (with a tactical nozzle on its side) to see if the flight failure would be replicated. (When a missile is launched from a submerged submarine it is trailed by a large gas bubble, which, when it collapses forms a very strong water jet that affects the missile’s aft end.)
The test successfully duplicated the flight failure. Next was developing necessary changes to the design without affecting the start-up of production lines. After many long days and nights of effort, several simple solutions emerged. The first was to install what looked like a tire tube (or an inflated life preserver) between the missile’s aft end and the nozzle to keep the water-jet impact pressure off the nozzle joint. Second, the nozzle’s aft-end connections to the steering control systems were beefed up; and third, a plug was put into the nozzle to keep the water jet out of the motor. Other minor changes were made as well.
Samples were made, and the integrity of the design approach was verified with several rounds of testing using the water-gun test facility. The changes were incorporated into the development missiles, and an extremely aggressive submarine-launch test program of five missiles was developed to confirm the new design. Testing was to start in August 1989 and be completed in December of that year. Confidence was high on the SSP-contractor team to get back on schedule, but Congress had a different view.
The Congressional Challenge
The Senate requested a briefing on the status of the program while those positive steps were being taken to get back on schedule. A technical overview of the problem, the fixes, and the revamped schedule to meet the initial operational date of Trident II was prepared for the meeting. On the appointed day Senator Warren Rudman (R-NH) welcomed the briefers by saying, “I am a duck hunter. You shoot the wounded ducks first, and your program is wounded.” He continued with the following assessment: The President needed unbudgeted billions of dollars for a program he is pushing, and no program with such a dramatic failure as yours can possibly get back on a schedule to be able to use your production funds next year. Because you will not need these funds, we want to use them for the President’s program, and once you get your system fixed we can talk about restoring your production funds.
As one of the Navy briefers appearing before the committee, my response was to offer a deal:
The contractor team has an excellent handle on the problem and the fixes are in the early stages of implementation. The cost of furloughing the workers and restarting production when funds are available would be very expensive and drastically extend deployments of the Trident II system. The delays would tie up several new Trident submarines waiting for missiles at great expense to the program and the Fleet. The production funds you propose to remove are not required until about [the] second quarter next year. The test program will be very aggressive between now and December and is designed to test the most challenging launch conditions. If the test program is completed without a problem the program could proceed as scheduled. If there is a failure the production funds will not be required. As an alternative to reducing the funds now, we suggest placing the production funds into an escrow account and if the test program is successful, in December you release the funds to the Navy. If the program is not successful—then obviously the production funds will be available for your use.
The committee members thanked the briefers. The meeting was over.
Success and the Same-Team Concept
In late 1989 and early 1990 the Tennessee successfully launched seven test D-5s—modified to correct the failure—in underwater-launch conditions on 2 and 15 August; on 4, 13, and 15 December; and on 15–16 January. On 29 January the Trident II D-5 strategic weapon system was certified ready for operational tests and demonstration and shakedown operations on the Tennessee. On 12 February 1990 her Blue Crew successfully completed a two-missile ripple launch off the coast of Florida. No one in Congress requested the return of any production funds. On 23 March 1990 the Tennessee completed loading out 24 missiles and deployed on the first D-5 operational patrol.
The credit for success dates to 1955, when Rear Admiral William “Red” Raborn, the first director of SSP, and his technical director, Captain Levering Smith, started work on a Fleet ballistic-missile weapon system. Their initial effort was on an Army Jupiter missile (surface launched), but that quickly shifted to the Polaris A-1 program. One of the rules of operation for that challenging technical and time-urgent program—designing, testing, and deploying Polaris in a four-year span—was this: “Tell the truth, only the truth, tell it quickly, and do what’s right for the program.” That standard procedure has continued throughout the life of the program.
Rear Admiral Raborn and his new special-projects office (which was to be temporary) established an operating process in which they were the system integrator for the entire weapon system. Their management concept used a steering task-group composed of the SSP director, technical director, and financial director, along with managers from the major contractors who were senior to the front-line program managers. That group provided oversight for the technical challenges of the program in the early days and maintained oversight once programs were better defined. This provided a very open communication line without interfering with contractual requirements.
To keep the reliability and availability estimates, or planning factors, away from any possible “stretching the estimates” the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory provided independent estimates for the program. An internal independent-assessment section was set up to monitor the program and provided its evaluation at the SSP’s routine 0830 Monday staff meetings. That fostered a system-wide atmosphere in which the swift delivery of any potential bad news to the front office was encouraged: When the news is bad, tell it quickly—and especially make it known before that small, independent analysis group has an opportunity to bring it up for the first time at an open staff meeting.
Those modes of operation have continued throughout the life of the FBM program, and the prevalent openness of communication is a major factor in its success. By way of example, in the early stages of the D-5 contract negotiations the Lockheed program manager approached SSP to report that SSP personnel were out-negotiating his people on the matter of the missile’s range to the point where Lockheed would have to sacrifice reliability for range. He was right on the mark. Contract incentives were adjusted to make it clear that reliability goals were far more important than a few miles of range. The contractors had as much desire and incentive to deliver a successful program as did the Navy. At times, in either technical or contract negotiations or discussions, it was difficult to tell who was the contractor and who was with the government—an enviable position for any program manager.
A key to the D-5 success rate on reliability was having the same team of prime subsystem contractors, proven on past programs, retained as the designers and producers of subsequent FBM missile systems as well as the continuity of many of the officers and civilians in SSP.1
Keeping key players on the FBM team has been a challenge since the Polaris days. At the beginning of the Poseidon program competition was viewed as the way to success. Captain Smith, the director at that time, told his leadership he could not guarantee reliability of the system with a new set of prime contractors, and a compromise was reached to keep the team together, relegating competition to the subcontractor level. The clear success of having the same basic government-industry team over five FBM programs is a testimonial to the value of this approach to both the program and the taxpayer.
One critical point about the possible reasons for such success is the reliability incentive for Lockheed. Lockheed proposed, and SSP accepted, a plan whereby the two would jointly compute a most-likely operational test flight reliability achievement number and provide the estimated reliability fees to the contractor. After several years of deployment and operational flight tests the actual numbers for achieved reliability were calculated. If those were below estimates Lockheed would have to pay money back to the Navy; if performance was better than predicted Lockheed would get additional reliability fee payments. Thus the corporate-management side of the program had to take the long-term view on the program rather than focus on short-term gains.
‘Perfect Reliability’ and an Extended Life
In the 19 years after the Tennessee went to sea on her first Trident II deterrent patrol, the Navy conducted 129 Trident II operational tests from every deployed Ohio-class SSBN without a failure. Loren B. Thompson, the chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute, wrote in the organization’s “Early Warning Blog” on 23 October 2009:
Unlike land-based missiles, Tridents must be ejected into the air from a submerged platform before igniting. They also need to hit targets thousands of miles away with pinpoint accuracy even though the submarine carrying them moves constantly. The fact that they have been able to do that with perfect reliability since first being deployed in 1990 is one reason why few countries want to mess with America.
In the years ahead, Trident missiles and the subs that carry them are likely to become even more crucial to nuclear deterrence. U.S. bombers seldom carry atomic warheads anymore and the Quadrennial Defense Review will propose reducing the number of Minutemen III missiles in the nuclear force. So Trident will provide the backbone of the future deterrent force. It’s good to know something that important always works as advertised, 100 percent of the time.2
A 100 percent success rate is indeed a rarity. It has been almost 23 years now since the first Trident II deterrent patrol. It has also been that long since the Navy has had a new missile system in development. The Poseidon C-3 and the Trident I C-4 missile systems were deployed for 20 to 25 years, but both were a bit short of desired capabilities. The Trident II D-5 missile system still meets all the nation’s needs, so rather than developing a new missile system the Navy instituted a life-extension (LE) program to keep the current systems viable longer—updating the electronic components for maintainability without changing any missile characteristics. The initial Fleet introduction of the new Trident II D-5 LE system is planned for 2017. The actual life of the program will depend on many factors, including developing threats, new strategic-arms treaties and emerging technologies.
On 22 February 2012 the Tennessee had another “first” opportunity, and successfully launched the first Trident II D-5 LE missile as part of a demonstration and shakedown operation. As of this writing the number of successful Trident II flight tests stands at 143.
Success does not come without a dedicated management team and appropriate funding. The challenges to maintain the Trident II D-5 for an extended time will require strict attention to operational engineering-support capabilities, including comprehensive reliability and maintainability evaluation programs to detect potential capability shortfalls. The nuclear deterrent capability of our country will depend on the survivability and reliability of the Trident D-5 LE systems well into the second half of this century.
1. “Defense Acquisition: Fleet Ballistic Missile Program Offers Lessons for Successful Programs” (Washington, DC: Government Accountability Office, 6 September 1960), www.gao.gov/assets/150/149693.pdf. The report notes that “30 percent of all military officers assigned to SSP have more than 10 years of FBM experience.”
2. The Lexington Institute is a for-profit consulting firm. www.lexingtoninstitute.org/early-warning-blog.