The Coast Guard's Deepwater team this fall will power up the command and control system installed on board the service's second National Security Cutter (NSC) Waesche (WMSL-751), which is under construction at Northrop Grumman's Pascagoula, Mississippi, shipyard. The light-off marks the start of testing for the CG-C2 (Coast Guard Command & Control) system, an architecture of sensors, communications systems, and processors designed to a highly common configuration for new Deepwater cutters and aircraft. The Deepwater program began in the mid-1990s as a comprehensive rebuilding of the Coast Guard's fleet of cutter and aircraft, many of which were nearing the ends of their services lives. The first of the cutters, the Bertholf (WMSL-750), was commissioned 4 August in Alameda, California.
An industry team of Lockheed Martin Sensors and Systems and Northrop Grumman, referred to as Integrated Coast Guard Systems (ICGS), won the Deepwater contract in June 2002. The contract calls for production of new aircraft, construction of eight NSCs to replace the 378-foot Hamilton class of high-endurance cutters, related upgrades for other cutter classes, and development of the new CG-C2 system.
Paul Klammer, Lockheed Martin's program director for Deepwater Command, Control, Communications, Computing, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) systems, stated that the CG-C2 system represents more than 80 percent commonality among the NSCs and two new aircraft, the HC-144 Ocean Sentry and HC-130J Hercules. Commonality, he said, "enables us to provide a system that can be used on multiple assets, providing a uniform data picture of tactical operations for cutters and aircraft. While the assets have their own unique hardware packaging requirements, we've leveraged the system . . . to achieve maximum commonality."
The HC-144 system is installed on a mission-system pallet that can be wheeled onto and off the aircraft when needed; the HH-130J system is fully integrated within aircraft systems. The NSC shipboard system integrates the cutter's TRS-3D air-search system, built by the European Aeronautics and Space (EADS) company, as well as an identification friend-foe system and the SPQ-9B surface- and air-search radar, with a processing architecture based primarily on Dell and Sun computers. The architecture integrates the Coast Guard-furnished COMDACS navigation software and a USCG search-and-rescue program. The cutter also is fitted with the Navy's SLQ-32 electronic warfare system and Phalanx close-in weapon system.
Klammer says that a key element of the development CG-C2 correlation software that performs the systems integration is "leveraging off traditional Navy work," especially Lockheed Martin's years of experience in systems engineering for the Aegis combat system for Ticonderoga-class cruisers and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. The company has built a Deepwater Maritime Domain Awareness Center at its Moorestown, New Jersey, facility, which conducted extensive testing of CG-C2 components prior to delivery to the shipyard.
He adds that system commonality for the cutters and the aircraft is achieved through use of open-architecture software modules. The Navy's formal Open Architecture initiative, started in the late 1990s, aims to shift its surface-ship combat systems software to a maximum reliance on industry standards and common software modules derived from industry standards. The Deepwater approach, Klammer says, has been to use the OA "context" of commercial standards wherever possible to maximize commonality.
The Deepwater program has faced major challenges. In August 2005 the Government Accountability Office released a study, "U.S. Coast Guard's Deepwater Acquisition Program in Deep Water," criticizing the program's management.
Following a number of Coast Guard and ICGS initiatives to restructure the program, a follow-up GAO study released in April 2006 praised the service and the industry team for taking prompt steps to resolve the problems. In July 2007 Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Thad Allen endorsed a "Blueprint for Acquisition Reform" that provides a new Coast Guard strategy for managing its acquisition programs.
Currently, the third National Security Cutter is under contract to ICGS. The Coast Guard has awarded long-lead procurement contract for materials for the fourth cutter, and is discussing the production contract for the fourth ship with ICGS.