Test & Evaluation Science & Technology

Mission— Electronic Warfare Test

In order to establish dominance in the modern battlespace, our offensive and defensive electronic warfare systems must be capable against advanced radio frequency (RF) directed threats and electro-optic (EO) guided threats, which include infrared (IR) guidance. Ensured dominance in these areas requires more robust test and evaluation (T&E) with technologies that are rapidly adaptable to changing threats. Readily available, IR seeking, man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) are difficult to detect and pose an imminent and lethal threat to military aircraft of all types. Our ability to counter such threats is essential to owning the battlespace in theater. Therefore, the ability to test missile warning systems (MWS), hostile fire indicator (HFI) systems, IR countermeasures (IRCM), and advanced threat sensors is critical to our national defense. Additionally, a new generation of enemy RF missile seekers is both currently fielded and in further development, requiring a correspondingly new generation of test technologies to test the latest countermeasures. The T&E community is required to test IRCM and RF countermeasure systems in a repeatable manner with ground-truth data before and after integration into warfighting systems. Without new test technologies, the Department of Defense (DoD) will be unable to perform adequate T&E of advanced warning and countermeasure systems. The Electronic Warfare Electronic attack and Electronic protect (EP) community is developing jammers and EP measures that are more sophisticated and take advantage of newer technology that allows adaptive waveforms and artificial intelligence and autonomy to respond to threats more rapidly and robustly. In addition, the testing of these systems in realistic many on many environments that are more threat representative requires new technology investment. The technology development efforts within the Electronic Warfare Test (EWT) project have been prioritized to align with DoD guidance on science and technology priority investments. As such, the EWT project is focusing on the test needs in both the EO, including IR, and the RF threat domains. Additionally, development of core test technologies in this area can be leveraged to meet other EO and RF test requirements, such as in fire control systems; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) sensors, and weapon seekers. The EWT project develops test technologies to stimulate IRCM and RF system sensors through the high-fidelity simulation of scenes viewed by the sensors. Stimulation can be as simple as testing to see if a system under test responds to an image or as complex as simulating complex battle space phenomena to measure the response of a system under test in a more relevant, cluttered scenario. Simulations and stimulations are used at open-air ranges and in installed system test facilities (ISTF), and in hardware-in-the-loop (HWIL) test beds.

Mission— Test and Evaluation Science and Technology

This program supports the Department's priorities to rebuild the military by matching threats to capabilities and re-establish deterrence by defending our homeland. The Test and Evaluation/Science and Technology (T&E/S&T) program seeks out and develops test technologies to keep pace with evolving weapons technologies. Aligned with national strategic guidance, this program is critical to ensure the Department’s readiness to test and field rapidly emerging technologies and weapon systems that defend our homeland, deter aggression, and achieve peace through strength. To meet this objective, the T&E/S&T Program performs the following activities: - Exploits new technologies and processes to meet important T&E requirements. - Expedites the transition of new technologies from the laboratory environment to the T&E community. - Leverages industry advances in equipment, modeling and simulation, and networking to support T&E. Additionally, the T&E/S&T Program examines emerging T&E requirements resulting from Joint Service initiatives to identify T&E technology needs and develop a long-range roadmap for technology insertion. The program leverages and employs applicable applied research efforts from the highly developed technology base in the DoD laboratories and test centers, other Government agencies, and industry to accelerate development of new test capabilities. The program outreaches and engages academia to address test technology challenges. The T&E/S&T Program aligns with the science and technology (S&T) Communities of Interest (COI) to prepare the T&E community to test warfighting capabilities that emerge from priority S&T investments. The T&E/S&T Program utilizes Advanced Technology Development funding, which supports the development and demonstration of high payoff technologies for current and future DoD test capabilities. FY26 Controls are incorrectly reflected subject to the following corrections: 1) Project 091 is understated. Correct control is $579.223M 3) Project 098 is overstated. Correct control is $14.762M. Delta of $141M is reflected in Project 091 total of $579.223M. 4) Project 112 does not reflect an additional $550M of mandatory funding.

Mission— Directed Energy Test

The Department of Defense (DoD) is exploring the military utility, safety, and suitability of directed energy weapons. A robust test capability to assess directed energy weapons is essential to understanding their effectiveness and limitations, including determining their effectiveness in performing counter improvised explosive device (C-IED) operations and counter UAS operations. Such assessments will depend upon knowledge acquired through the test and evaluation (T&E) of directed energy technologies and testing of operational concepts. Directed energy weapon technologies, primarily consisting of high energy lasers (HEL) and high powered microwaves (HPM), are outpacing available test capabilities. Traditional test techniques for evaluating conventional munitions (with flight times ranging from seconds to minutes) are not sufficient for the T&E of directed energy weapons that place energy on target instantaneously. Consequently, new test technology solutions are needed to ensure that adequate developmental, live-fire, and operational test capabilities are available when directed energy programs are ready to test. Directed energy system and component testing requires three principal assessments: (1) energy or power on target; (2) the effects on the target; and (3) the propagation of the directed energy to the target through the atmosphere. In addition, the vulnerabilities of DoD systems to directed energy threats are required to be characterized, such as those requirements captured in Military Standard (MIL-STD)-464C. Equally as important, current test capabilities do not provide the detailed data required to understand U.S. directed energy system performance and effects. The technology development efforts within the Directed Energy Test (DET) project have been prioritized to align with DoD guidance on science and technology priority investments. As such, the DET project is developing the technologies necessary for quantitative assessment of United States (U.S.) HEL and HPM performance, as well as the vulnerability of DoD weapon systems to enemy directed energy threats.

Mission— Autonomy and Artificial Intelligence Test

The emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) brings a host of revolutionary capabilities that will profoundly influence warfare, and bring special challenges for testers of Artificial Intelligence systems. The Autonomy and Artificial Intelligence Test (AAIT) project addresses current and emerging challenges associated with the test and evaluation (T&E) of unmanned systems, particularly in testing autonomy, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. As such, AAIT is developing test technologies to simulate, stimulate, instrument, measure, and assess an autonomous system’s ability to perceive its environment, process information, adapt to dynamic conditions, make decisions, and effectively act on those decisions in the context of mission execution. AAIT will provide the test technologies to effectively measure performance and characterize risk, thereby increasing warfighter trust in autonomous systems and artificial intelligence tools. This program will improve DoD test capabilities and methodologies to address the testing of increasingly autonomous units operating in unstructured, dynamic, battlespace environments. Furthermore, advancements are being made in developing collaborating, system-of-autonomous-systems that will work in concert as a swarm or pack, and in close proximity with humans. New test technologies are needed to stress the collective set of autonomous systems under realistic conditions, predict emergent behavior of autonomous systems, emulate the complex environment, and assess mission performance of these highly coupled and artificially intelligent systems.

Mission— Advanced Instrumentation Systems Technology

The Advanced Instrumentation Systems Technology (AIST) project addresses the test technology gaps resulting from emerging weapon systems that need to be assessed at the Department of Defense (DoD) installed systems test facility and hardware-in-the-loop testing (ISTF/HITL) and open-air range test facilities (including tropospheric, land-based, open-ocean, and undersea ranges). Instrumentation requirements for systems under test are increasing exponentially for new weapons systems. System-borne, warfighter-wearable, and remote sensing instrumentation packages are required. This instrumentation is for sensing and collecting critical performance data; determining accurate time, space, position information (TSPI) and attitude information; interfacing with command and control data links; monitoring and reporting system-wide communications; recording human operator physical and cognitive performance; and storing and transmitting data. The technology development efforts within the AIST project have been prioritized to align with the DoD guidance on science and technology (S&T) communities of interest (COIs). The AIST project is focused on developing technologies for advanced TSPI instrumentation (especially with limited or no availability of Global Positioning System (GPS)), advanced sensors, advanced energy and power systems for instrumentation, micro-electronics, mitigating range encroachment issues, and measuring warfighter physical and cognitive performance. The AIST project addresses requirements for miniaturized, non-intrusive instrumentation suites with increased survivability in harsh environments. Such instrumentation is an urgent need because minimal space is available to add instrumentation to new or existing weapon systems subsequent to their development; furthermore, additional weight and power needs for instrumentation can adversely affect weapon system signature and performance. Instrumentation for humans-in-the-loop, especially dismounted warfighters, must not adversely affect performance, induce artificiality in the test environment, or create any operational burdens. New technologies can be exploited to integrate small, non-intrusive instrumentation (micro-technology) into emerging platforms during design and development, and, in some cases, into existing platforms. This class of instrumentation will provide critical system performance data during operational test (OT) and continuous assessment throughout a system’s lifecycle. Technology developed under AIST can also benefit training and combat missions by enabling a continual feedback loop between the developer, training staff, operators, and commanders.

Mission— C4I & Software Intensive Systems Test

The Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence (C4I) and Software Intensive Systems (SIS) (C4T) project addresses test technology for next generation resilient, survivable, federated networks and information systems (information superiority) from the tactical level up to strategic planning. The technology development efforts within the C4T project have been prioritized to align with DoD guidance of S&T Communities of Interest (CoIs) and the interim National Defense Strategy. Gaps are driven by more complex warfare environments and distributed systems; large quantities of data and intelligence (e.g., Big Data, Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and Machine Learning Algorithms (MLA)); and more software intensive systems (e.g. F-35, CVN, IBCS)). C4T addresses gaps in Big Data Analytics technologies to gain knowledge from massive amounts of structured and unstructured data collected over a single test, but also expanded to look at the systems’ performance over the acquisition lifecycle. The technologies are required when testing sensor platforms, command and control systems and weapon platforms that support the kill chain in a Joint multi-domain operation. These systems must be evaluated for their ability to provide the accurate, timely transfer of data (e.g., target tracks, weapons allocation, mission tasking, and situational awareness) as the data passes among the Services, Warfighting Domains, and Coalition Partners. C4T also addresses gaps in Live and Simulated Environments, these technologies are required to increase the use of a distributed test environment for new warfare concepts leveraging simulated entities (e.g. modeling and simulation) for more thorough joint mission context platform T&E (e.g., Anti-Access Arial Denial (A2AD) and Manned and Unmanned Systems (MUM-T)). The technologies within C4T will remove undesired distributed testing biases while improving test agility and the tester’s ability to effectively support knowledge management, rapid analysis of “Big Data," and automated test reporting. The C4T project advances these test technologies as well as Big Data collection, analysis, and visualization that enable the virtual integration of Department of Defense (DoD) weapon laboratories and open-air ranges. Using Modeling and Simulation (M&S) along with hardware-in-the-loop (HWIL) laboratories, the effectiveness of Joint missions can be assessed in terms of system-of-systems interoperability and effectiveness in executing Joint mission operations, including testing of weapons and C4I and SIS systems accessing and providing information. Lastly, C4T addresses technologies to support C2 Analysis in Multi-Domain Operations (MDO), specifically at scale and density to fully assessed the mission kill web with new test design, planning and assessment technologies utilizing artificial intelligence and machine learning to not only plan assessments within a domain, but also to enable assessments of “what-if” testing cascading across the other domains of warfare. This will enable full assessment of multi-domain operations to ensure information superiority to accomplish mission objectives. New intelligent testing technologies are required for assessment of MDO missions for our future warfighter AI/ML-enabled C2 Warfighter Systems to ensure the battlefield will not be the testing field. These new MDO focused technologies are vital to creation of a robust operationally relevant Joint Service All Domain Test Range.

Mission— Space Test

The space domain has become a competitive, congested, and contested environment dominated by global economics and key to national security. With the creation of the United States Space Force, the Department of Defense (DoD) is prioritizing investments to maintain space superiority and increase resiliency of space systems. Current testing infrastructure and methodologies to assess space system resilience against emerging threats is limited. The Space Test (ST) project mission is to address national test capability gaps by providing accurate, robust, and efficient T&E solutions to successfully develop, validate, and inform the employment of new space control systems. The ST project addresses test technology needs for adequate realism for space systems and aligns with the DoD S&T priority investments and is developing a strategic roadmap and investment strategy to establish live and virtual range environments, develop space and ground-based threat emulation capabilities. The ST project seeks to develop technologies that will enable robust, accurate, and timely T&E of future space weapon systems.

Mission— High Speed Systems Test

High-speed/hypersonic weapons are being developed to ensure the continued military superiority and strike capability of the United States including freedom of movement and freedom of action in areas protected by anti-access/area denial defenses. Current weapon system demonstrations and technology development programs include high-speed and hypersonic air-breathing missiles, maneuvering reentry and boost-glide weapons, hypersonic gun-launched projectiles, and air-breathing space access vehicles. These systems require development of conventional and high-speed turbine, ramjet, scramjet, and combined cycle engines; high temperature materials; thermal protection systems (TPS); and thermal management systems. The High Speed Systems Test (HSST) project addresses test technology needs including propulsion, aerodynamic and aerothermal testing, so the test community has the technology to support the required test scenarios for concepts under development in the S&T community. The technology developments within the HSST project align with the Department of Defense (DoD) S&T priority investments. As such, the HSST project is developing, validating and transitioning advanced T&E technologies for ground test, open-air range flight test, and advanced computational tools, along with instrumentation and diagnostics systems for use in both ground tests and flight tests of high speed systems. The HSST project develops technologies to enable robust, accurate, and timely T&E of these future weapon systems. DoD acquisition regulations require weapon systems to undergo a thorough T&E process to detect deficiencies early and to ensure system suitability and survivability. However, the extreme environments in which these weapons operate preclude accurate determination of their performance and operability with today’s T&E assets. Current national test capabilities have deficiencies in data accuracy, flight condition replication and simulation, test methods, productivity, modeling and simulation (M&S) fidelity, and range safety. The HSST mission is to address these national test capability gaps by providing test technology solutions that will enable high-speed and hypersonic weapon systems to be successfully developed through accurate, robust, and efficient T&E.

Mission— Spectrum Efficient Technology

Weapon systems have become increasingly complex in recent years, resulting in the need for significantly more data to be passed among these systems as well as between the systems and our test infrastructure. A vast amount of data must be collected, transmitted, and analyzed, which requires a large amount of radio frequency (RF) spectrum resources. However, the amount of RF spectrum designated to support test and evaluation (T&E) is decreasing, most notably due to reallocation of spectrum for commercial use. The combination of decreasing RF spectrum and increasing data requirements results in an urgent need to develop test technologies that maximize the use of spectrum resources for the Department of Defense (DoD) T&E operations. The L- and S- Band frequencies are the traditional spectrum allotted for military T&E use. The explosive need for spectrum in the commercial sector has resulted in reallocation of portions of these bands to industry. To compensate, the DoD is now authorized to use the C-Band spectrum which offers numerous benefits, including the potential for a large increase in available bandwidth, but the C-Band spectrum comes with technical challenges and regulatory constraints. Most notably, our current test infrastructure for telemetry is not designed to accommodate C-Band and the band is heavily shared for alternate uses. Technologies are required to implement innovative techniques that efficiently facilitate our use of C-Band without a major overhaul to our national test infrastructure. For instance, commercial telemetry transmitters operate in C-Band but do not have the form factor (size, weight and power) nor ruggedized packaging to survive airborne test applications. Traditional telemetry applications employ streaming telemetry where data is moved one-way from the instrumented system under test to our test range infrastructure. Modern network based telemetry and cellular based telemetry capabilities enable more robust, efficient bidirectional transfer of data. The DoD strategy is to create technologies for implementing a telemetry capability in C-Band, using the legacy L- and S-Bands for both streaming and networked telemetry, and researching the feasibility of using higher frequency bands to augment telemetry operations. The Spectrum Efficient Technology (SET) project is developing test technologies that enable more efficient use of legacy telemetry bands and expansion into non-traditional areas of the RF and optical spectra at DoD test ranges. The technology development efforts within the SET project have been prioritized to align with the Department of Defense guidance on science and technology priority investments. As such, the SET project is focusing on growing data requirements of warfighting systems and the limited availability of spectrum for testing. The SET project is structured to develop test technologies to advance range communications, networked and cellular based telemetry capabilities, and enhanced management of spectrum at DoD test ranges.

Mission— MACH-TB

Hypersonic development remains a top priority for the Department. The Multi-Service Advanced Capability for Hypersonics Test Bed (MACH-TB) accelerates delivery of advanced hypersonic and strategic capabilities to the warfighter by leveraging commercial space launch and non-traditional test beds to provide DoD, other Federal agencies, industry, and academia the capability to affordably and rapidly conduct hypersonic experiments and test hypersonic system components.

Mission— Cyberspace Test

The Department’s ability to use cyberspace for rapid communication and information sharing in support of operations is a critical enabler of DoD military missions. Advancements in utilizing cyberspace are outpacing the technologies needed for test and evaluation (T&E). The Cyberspace Test Technology (CTT) project develops advanced technologies and methodologies to test and evaluate DoD capabilities and information networks to defend and conduct full-spectrum military operations across cyberspace. This program will improve cyberspace T&E capabilities to support the continual experimental, contractor, developmental, operational, and live-fire testing requirements of warfighter systems operating in cyberspace. Many of the test tools and infrastructure items required for systems in cyberspace will require advancement and maturation of nascent test technologies. The CTT project will address test technology shortfalls in cyberspace testing, including planning cyberspace tests, creating representative cyberspace threats and test environments, executing cyberspace tests, and performing cyberspace test analysis and evaluation.

Mission— Nuclear Test

The Nuclear Test (NT) project mission addresses national test capability gaps by providing accurate, robust, and efficient T&E solutions to successfully develop, validate, and inform the employment of a modernized nuclear enterprise. The Department of Defense (DoD) is prioritizing investments to modernize the nuclear enterprise while sustaining and increasing the resiliency of legacy systems. Current developments focus on deploying capabilities and systems to validate new designs and new materials in a complex threat-representative environment. Current testing infrastructure and methodologies to assess nuclear enterprise systems and microelectronics resilience against emerging threats is limited. Many test capabilities used in the past for acquisition are no longer available, either stopped by policy decisions or dismantled for cost savings. The NT project addresses test technology needs for adequate assessment of nuclear enterprise resiliency and aligns with the DoD S&T priority investments. The NT project is supporting the development of a strategic roadmap and investment strategy to establish nuclear test environments for microelectronics, ground test environments for system level testing, and flight test range enhancements for end-to-end testing needs. The NT project develops technologies to enable robust, accurate, and timely T&E of a modernized nuclear enterprise, and to ensure system suitability and survivability.

Accomplishments & Planned Programs (11)