Track 2 Session 1
9:10 to 10:10 a.m. Tuesday June 9, 2009

COTS Parts and HALT as Applied to the Tactical Tomahawk Missile

The Tactical Tomahawk missile program was an unsolicited proposal by Raytheon Missile Systems to provide an upgraded capability cruise missile design using commercial parts and practices for half the price of the prior version and having an extended warranty of 15 years. In order to accomplish this goal, the program chose to use the Highly Accelerated Life Test (HALT) for reliability development and the Highly Accelerated Stress Screening (HASS) to assure continuing product capabilities. This presentation will describe the HALT and HASS approach and the results — both for the subassemblies and for the Tactical Tomahawk cruise missile demonstration flights. The lessons learned regarding the environmental capabilities of commercial, industrial–grade parts and the performance of the Raytheon recommended "layered" HALT approach will also be described in some detail.

Key Words:Reliability Engineering, Highly Accelerated Life Test, HALT, Highly Accelerated Stress Screening, HASS, Layered HALT, Tactical Tomahawk, COTS