Central Test and Evaluation Investment Development (CTEIP)

In FY24, CTEIP developed enterprise solutions for high-priority T&E needs in critical technology areas and foundational capabilities. Highlights include: Hypersonics - Initiate development of a new hypersonic ground test complex with private industry to address growing demand for aerodynamic, aerothermal, and propulsion test needs - Develop a clean air, variable Mach ground test capability for Developmental Test & Evaluation (DT&E) of full-scale hypersonic boost glide and scramjet weapon systems. - Develop a mid-pressure arc heaters to expand the DoD H2 Hypersonic Test Facility to provide higher enthalpy at the midpressure altitudes to enable ground testing of Prompt Global Strike, Maneuvering Reentry Vehicles, and SCRamJet components such as nose cones, fins, and other leading-edge surfaces. - Develop a next generation aeroshell test capability arc heater facility that increases DoD’s capacity to conduct aerothermal materials testing in support of hypersonic missiles, ballistic missiles, and other high altitude ballistic/maneuvering munitions. - Develop weather effects upgrades for existing test track to provide a small-scale rain and snow erosion test capability to validate vehicle structural design. - Develop an improved sled track rockets that provides a new modular rocket propulsion system for the three DoD high speed test tracks including an improved capability to ground test full scale components at hypersonic speeds. - Provide a scoring system motion compensation table to develop a radar pedestal motion compensation mechanism and test and verification system to support weapon lethality testing in broad open ocean environments. - Return to service a Mach 7 test capability at an Air Force hypersonic ground test facility to provide a full-scale aerothermal structural capability for seeker aperture development. - Develop Modeling & Simulation (M&S) capability to support boost glide thermal analysis software upgrades that provides a tool set for improving capabilities for predicting aerothermal and ablation response to high speed, high temperature flow in ground and flight test environments. - Develop advanced material response models validated with ground test data to predict weather erosion in flight. - Implement non-ballistic radar tracking algorithms and the supporting infrastructure to track nonballistic hypersonic vehicles for Reagan Test Site. - Refresh Reagan Test Site Kiernan Reentry Measurement System (KREMS) radar hardware and software systems to increase system functionality and system capability. - Improve high fidelity, high temperature scene projectors for installed system and hardware-in-the-loop laboratory testing of sensors and seekers for high-speed weapons and missile engagements. Directed Energy - Develop shortwave infrared zoom capability to be mounted on multiple DoD tracking systems to track, determine effects phenomenology, and Time Space Positioning Information (TSPI) of aerial directed energy targets at night and in obscuration. - Develop a ruggedized, shielded, man-portable highspeed data recording system for High Power Microwave (HPM) directed energy testing. - Develop a diagnostic system for confirming performance of current and future High Energy Laser (HEL) systems. - Develop a remote target sensor capable of measuring HPM effects on internal components attacked by HPM systems. - Develop a frequency-agile S-Band High Power Microwave threat source for Military Standard 464C vulnerability testing. - Develop tethered HPM recorder and electronic attack target to accelerates development of instrumentation necessary for testing UAS vulnerabilities in an HPM threat environment. - Develop upgraded system placement analysis capability to provide 3D outdoor effects test planning needed to support testing of Counter UAS HPM systems. - Develop 6 DoD vibration tables for HEL systems mounted on ships, ground vehicles, and aircraft. - Develop portable electronic field sensors to cover a wide area measurement system to characterize the HPM Efield and test blue HPM effectiveness against airborne threats. Cyber - Develop an avionics test bed providing a common framework to allow embedded avionics components to engage in an error-free state while component level cybersecurity T&E is performed. - Expand an existing test application to include cyber test capabilities to monitor, check for, alert on, identify messaging, and identify the source of the messaging that is modified or indicates a modification “tipoff” capability. - Develop wideband RF Cybersecurity test tool for exploiting unencrypted Radio Frequency datalinks by capturing datalink information and generating RF messages in real time. Electronic Warfare - Upgrade missile attitude instrument suite used to capture 6DOF TSPI and validate RF and IR missile models, while meeting requirements associated with OCONUS transport and operation. - Implement littoral electromagnetic range to establish a secure, well-instrumented coastal test environment to validate emerging commercial and government electromagnetic systems and tactics. - Develop Very High Frequency (VHF) threat simulator to support wideband VHF MIL STD 464C testing of a full-sized target such as an aircraft. - Develop closed-loop Passive Electronic Scanned Array (PESA) simulator with two transportable, closed-loop threat radar systems replicating the performance of a classified, widely fielded long-range surface-to-air missile system. - Develop test capability in which Electro-Optical/Infrared (EO/IR) imagery is directly injected into the systems’ core computer via sensor emulators. - Develop an electronic attack package for a drone target that can target multiple radar systems under test (SUT)s at multiple frequency bands. - Develop Integrated Air Defense System (IADS) enhancements with networked threat emulation to provide a comprehensive threat representative IADS capability at an open-air range and other facilities providing four threat representative Command Posts to existing Electronic Warfare (EW) capabilities. - Develop an RF and cyber effects test environment for Electromagnetic Maneuver Warfare. - Upgrade Digital Integrated Air Defense System (DIADS) M&S capacities to support expansion of EW testing across western test ranges. - Establish enterprise architecture and approach to implement multirange aircraft instrumentation interoperability and network connectivity to meet EW open-air battle shaping test and training needs for air warfare missions. - Provide upgraded and new Radar Cross Section (RCS) measurement capabilities to measure and evaluate advanced low observable technologies in increasingly complex and cluttered environments. Nuclear Effects - Develop a test capability to assess the vulnerability of missile components to a nuclear weapon. - Develop test facility upgrade for Single Event Effects (SEE) testing to increase capacity of testing natural space radiation. - Upgrade a survivability and vulnerability test facility to provide an improved control system and subsonic wind capability. - Upgrade an X-ray simulator to measure the susceptibility of missile components to damage from space environments. Space - Provide a dual laser threat simulation capability to evaluate space-based Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) sensors against surrogate ground and air-based laser threats. Autonomy - Develop autonomous systems test capability to provide digital robotic and autonomous systems integrated virtual environment for testing DoD autonomous ground vehicle systems and an open-air range environment capability to test full scale autonomous vehicles. - Develop autonomous teaming for a suite of capabilities furthering Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) systems integration into controlled airspace and the test tools for integrating manned/unmanned teaming between ranges. Demonstration at Pax River, MD has been successful. Initial capabilities will be delivered to Naval Air Station Pax River, MD, Redstone Arsenal, AL and Edwards AFB, CA. - Develop Naval autonomous systems test capabilities to establish a Modeling and Simulation (M&S) capability to test the performance of Naval surface ship autonomous systems software. - Provide a maritime survivability library and threat M&S tool which evaluates the lethality of emerging anti-ship weapons, using artificial intelligence/machine learning techniques. Common Range Instrumentation - Develop counter Unmanned Aircraft Systems (cUAS) lethality diagnostics to provide a shielded enclosure for flight controllers, lethality and HPM diagnostics for cUAS operations. - Develop an open-air capability for creating a mission relevant RF test environment for testing cUAS systems at Naval Air Warfare Center (NAWCAD) Webster Field, MD. - Develop advanced NextGen optical range tracking systems to increase performance, reduce costs and establish secure reliable optical tracking capability on DoD open-air ranges. - Develop real-time vehicle data collection capability that reduces instrumentation size, weight and power requirements by replacing three unique data collectors with one modular, scalable data collector that has increased storage capacity. - Develop a modular hybrid tracking system for aircraft and weapon testing that provides a range of time, space position information (TSPI) capabilities in Global Positioning System (GPS)-denied environments. - Upgrade maritime long-range fires test assets with an additional telemetry frequency, enabling range safety control and telemetry to support stream raid/simultaneous engagements. - Develop open ocean weapons impact scoring system to provide persistent, relocatable range capability for beyond line of sight, high precision weapon scoring and range surveillance. - Develop a multi-axle vehicle chassis simulator and a drive train simulator to test heavy 4 and 5 axle vehicle performance and reliability.