Lockheed Moves Forward With USN’s LCS
By CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS
Posted 10/22/07 21:43
Construction work on Lockheed Martin’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) Freedom recently passed a couple of milestones in combat system and shipboard equipment testing, the company said.
“We are making some very good progress on LCS 1,” said Paul Lemmo, Lockheed’s director of business development for the LCS.
Access and handling systems in the mission bay areas — key to managing and operating the mission modules the ships will carry — were tested with the ship pierside at the Marinette shipyard in Marinette, Wis.
“We demonstrated the stern ramp and the side doors,” along with the rail and crane handling system to raise and lower vehicles and equipment from the side door, Lemmo said.
At Lockheed’s Mission Systems Integration Center in Moorestown, N.J., the Navy-developed software for the mine mission package was fed into the Lockheed-developed Combatss-21 combat system. The mission package software combines all the various components of a portable mission module, such as manned and unmanned vehicles, weapons and sensors, into one element.
The combat system showed it could import the mine software package and perform the core mission requirements, Rich Calabrese, Lockheed’s director for mission systems, said of the Oct. 10 test.
“This is the first step in realizing the LCS vision of having a core system and integrating mission packages into it,” he said.
The mine warfare package was the first mission software to be tested with Combatss-21, Calabrese said. Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) is continuing work on software for the other two mission packages, anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare, being developed for the LCS.
Testing of the combat system will continue at Moorestown, where Lockheed has replicated the control center of the LCS.
“We can do a complete system test” at the facility, Calabrese said, “minus the actual radar and missile hardware.” Testing on board the Freedom is scheduled to begin inMarch.
Meanwhile, Lockheed also is continuing work on an international version of the LCS for Israel. Last month, NAVSEA awarded an additional $2.5 million to the company to study the combat system configuration.
“This is an effort to look at the combat system performance with the systems the Israelis specify,” said Gary Feldman, Lockheed’s business development director for the international LCS.
Earlier this year, the company completed work under a 2006 $5.2 million NAVSEA contract to study hull, mechanical and engineering systems for the Israeli LCS.
“We validated the hull could accommodate the systems,” Feldman said. “The goal was to maintain as much commonality with the U.S. versions as possible. We were very successful. The hull is very much the same hull. The topside modifications were necessary for the combat system. We validated it with the multifunction radar, Mk 41 vertical launch system and other systems.”
In contrast with the U.S. LCS, Israel is eschewing the mission module concept in favor of a more heavily armed ship carrying permanently emplaced systems.
The new nine-month study will study integration of the Lockheed Aegis SPY-1F radar and the Israeli Elta EL/M-2248 Adir radar with the Combatss-21 system, Feldman said.
The Israelis already have specified use of a Rafael Typhoon gun, he said. The missile system is to be capable of launching a U.S. Raytheon Standard SM-2 surface-to-air missile, but the study will also look at incorporating the Israel Aerospace Industries Barak 1 and 8 missile systems.
“When the study is completed, we’ll expect the Israelis will move forward with contract design,” he said.
If the Israelis gain approval to buy the LCS, Feldman added, detail design could begin in 2009 with construction starting in 2010. å