R/M Design for Long Term Dormant Storage

The design of a missile system to sustain long periods of dormancy (operational ready in a "power-off state) is addressed. This includes all the "ready storage" and deployed "captive carry" phases of the defined life cycIe. Given the reliability and maintainability requirements, a reliability allocation is performed using the "wooden round" maintenance approach. The results show that the reliability risk presented by the dormant phases of the example mission profile constitutes 88 percent of the overall reliability risk for a successful mission. A second reliability allocation is performed using a maintenance concept that allows Go/No-Go type confidence testing prior to deployment. A 43 percent improvement in mission reliability is achieved using the Go/No-Go maintenance concept in lieu of the Nooden round." A study of dormancy failures modes and their impact upon flight test assessment follows.