The U.S. Navy this fall exercised the first option of a contract awarded last year to Raytheon’s Integrated Defense Systems business unit for production of Mk-54 lightweight antisubmarine (ASW) torpedo kits. The option, valued at $45.3 million, funds the second year of the five-year award. The company now is delivering kits under the first-year buy.
Arleigh Burke–class destroyers, Ticonderoga-class cruisers, and Oliver Hazard Perry–class frigates now are armed with the Mk-54, which can be launched both from Mk-32 torpedo tubes and the vertical-launch antisubmarine rocket system. The MH-60R multi-mission helicopter, which will operate from the Navy’s new Freedom and Independence classes of littoral combat ships and from other surface combatants and aircraft carriers, also will launch the Mk-54 as its primary ASW weapon.
In late 2011 the Navy successfully test-launched the Mk-54 over the Atlantic Test Range from the P-8A Poseidon multi-mission aircraft, now being built by Boeing for the Navy, which plans to buy 117 units. The P-8A mission-computing and display system controlled the launch from an altitude of 500 feet.
The new Raytheon contract option supports Mk-54 sales to the Royal Australian Navy, which has bought 24 MH-60Rs, and to the Indian Navy, which has ordered eight P-8As and may purchase more.
Mk-54 development commenced in the late 1990s to provide surface combatants and ASW aircraft, including P-3C patrol/ASW aircraft and SH-60 helicopters, more effective capability against quiet diesel-electric submarines operating in shallow littoral waters. The original Mk-54 (mod 0) first was fielded in 2004.
Dave Gross, director of torpedo programs for Raytheon IDS’s Seapower Capability Systems group, says that the Mk-54 program is a collaboration referred to as “Team Torpedo” between the company and the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) labs at Keyport, Washington, and Newport, Rhode Island, which develop advanced algorithms for torpedo guidance and control. NUWC Newport conducts design engineering and up-front system engineering. The torpedoes are assembled at Raytheon’s Keyport facility, and Raytheon personnel support the NUWC engineering effort.
Raytheon describes the Mk-54 as a hybrid of components from the older Mk-46 and Mk-50 lightweight torpedoes and the Mk-48 ADCAP (advanced capability) submarine-launched torpedo, integrated in a kit that represents a technology upgrade to provide ASW capability for both deep-ocean and shallow littoral environments.
Navy officials say that the kit integrates the Mk-46, Mk-50, and Mk-48 ADCAP components with new commercially developed digital signal-processing technology, and an advanced guidance-and-control subsystem that enables the torpedo to evade hostile countermeasures and home in on quiet diesel-engine submarine targets.
The Mk-54 encompasses an enhanced variant of the Mk-50 sonar and a guidance-and-control system derived from the Mk-48 and Mk-50 that incorporates commercially developed “open architecture” processing and detection, editing, and tracking algorithms. The Mk-54 warhead, designated Mk-103 mod 1, has long been in use for other Fleet systems. The propulsion system uses components from the Mk-46, -48, and -50.
Mk-54 command-and-control on board the MH-60R is provided by the AQS-22 airborne low-frequency sonar (ALFS), also built by Raytheon. The dipping sonar system provides submarine detection, tracking, localization, classification, acoustic intercept, underwater communications, and environmental data collection, according to the company. In January 2012 Raytheon received an $80.8 million award under a modification to a Navy contract for sale of ALFS to the Royal Australian Navy for its MH-60Rs.
The company will begin production and delivery to the U.S. Navy of torpedoes under the newly awarded option to follow work now under way under the 2011 award.