The Navy’s Program Executive Office for Integrated Warfare Systems, in collaboration with Lockheed Martin’s Mission Systems and Training business unit, has certified an upgraded baseline for the Aegis combat system as ready for operational use on board the Navy’s Ticonderoga-class cruisers.
The certification, for baseline 9A for the cruisers, is the latest in a series of key decision points for the Navy and the company in the ongoing modernization of the Aegis system, both for the cruisers and for Arleigh Burke–class destroyers. In December the company completed a preliminary design review (PDR) for the newest baseline, referred to as 9.C2, now planned for the Burke destroyers expected to be funded for construction in Fiscal Year 2016.
The 9.C2 PDR followed a just-completed critical-design review for a new ballistic-missile-defense (BMD) computer program, designated BMD 5.1, which will provide a “third-generation” BMD defense capability for those ships.
Jim Sheridan, Lockheed Martin’s director for U.S. Navy Aegis programs, says that BMD 5.1 will be integrated with baseline 9.C2 to provide a full-up integrated air-missile defense (IAMD) capability for the future DDGs.
The multidimensional enhancement to the Aegis system is perhaps the dominant component of the comprehensive modernization of the cruisers and destroyers, which also encompasses major upgrades to surface weapons and sensors, undersea systems, ship machinery, damage control, and other systems.
For the destroyers, the nearer-term Aegis upgrade will be baseline 9.C1 integrated with the current BMD program, BMD 5.0. The two programs were demonstrated successfully last fall on board the USS John Paul Jones (DDG-53) when, in an October test, the ship successfully tracked a ballistic missile target and two cruise missile targets.
Sheridan said the tracking exercise served as a “dress rehearsal” for a subsequent missile flight test, called FTM-25, in November, during which the ship launched an SM-3 block 1B anti-ballistic-missile weapon that intercepted a ballistic missile target and nearly simultaneously fired SM-2 block 3A anti-air missiles to intercept two low-flying cruise missile targets. “All outbound missiles were in the air at the same time—that’s IAMD,” he added.
The full-up IAMD capability for the destroyers will include the SM-3 and SM-6 missiles, both built by Raytheon as well as the Raytheon-developed cooperative engagement capability (CEC), which enables consolidation of target data acquired by multiple ships and aircraft.
A critical component is the Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air (NIF-CA), a “system of systems” that integrates data from multiple sensors, including those on board the E-2D Hawkeye long-range surveillance aircraft and the Army’s joint land-attack elevated netted sensor system, among others, for use in targeting weapons. The Navy already has demonstrated NIF-CA successfully on board the John Paul Jones and Chancellorsville (CG-62).
The John Paul Jones completed her availability for the baseline modernization in 2013. Two more ships, the Barry (DDG-52) and Benfold (DDG-65), started their availabilities in 2013 and completed them last year at Norfolk and San Diego, respectively, then went through successful sea trials in the fall. Lead ship of the class Arleigh Burke (DDG-51) started her availability in Norfolk late last year.
Currently, the combat-systems modernizations are planned to continue on that one-two-one schedule, with two more set to start in 2015. The ship scheduled for modernization in 2016—possibly the Roosevelt (DDG-80)—will get baseline 9.C2, which also will go aboard new-construction ships starting with DDG-119, if current plans hold.
Modernization for the Ticonderoga cruisers, upgraded to baseline 9A, will provide the NIF-CA anti-air capability, including an additional air-search radar, the SPQ-9B, an X-band system built by Northrop Grumman for horizon search and detection of low-flying targets. Because of funding constraints, destroyers getting Aegis baseline 9.C1 will not get the SPQ-9B, but those scheduled for 9C.2 will get the system.
Currently, three cruisers have been upgraded to baseline 9A: the Princeton (CG-59), Normandy (CG-60), and Chancellorsville. However, the cruisers will not get the second- or third-generation BMD capability that the DDG’s 9.C1 and 9.C2 will provide. Two CGs, the Lake Erie (CG-70) and Port Royal (CG-73), have been fitted out with an earlier BMD suite.