Active Oct 1, 1999 – present Branch United States Army Website www.army.mil/atec | Country United States Motto(s) Truth | |
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Garrison/HQ HQ - Arlington, VA
Various locations | ||
U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command, or ATEC, is a direct reporting unit of the United States Army responsible for developmental testing, independent operational testing, independent evaluations, assessments, and experiments of Army equipment.
Contents
ATEC is located throughout the continental United States, Alaska, and Hawaii. Command headquarters is located at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.
History
Consolidation of all Army developmental and operational testing commands was approved by the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army on Nov. 18, 1998. The decision led to the redesignation of the Operational Test and Evaluation Command to ATEC on Oct. 1, 1999. All major subordinate commands of OPTEC were redesignated as well with the Test and Evaluation command redesignated as the U.S. Army Developmental Test Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground; the Test and Experimentation Command was redesignated the U.S. Army Operational Test Command, Fort Hood, Texas; and the Operational Evaluation Command and the Evaluation Analysis Center were combined to form the new U.S. Army Evaluation Center located at Aberdeen Proving Ground.
Operations
ATEC conducts testing for all branches of the military and maintains a large customer base that includes the National Security Agency, Joint Chiefs of Staff, allied foreign countries, and Congress. ATEC employs approximately 9,000 military, civilian and contract employees that are highly skilled test officers, engineers, scientists, technicians, researchers, and evaluators. ATEC is involved in more than 1,100 tests daily that encompass everything from individual weapons to National Missile Defense systems. The annual budget for the command is in excess of half a billion dollars.