Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems (IDS), combat-systems integrator for the Zumwalt (DDG-1000) destroyer, which now is nearing completion at General Dynamics Bath Iron Works shipyard in Bath, Maine, is working with Bath engineers to conduct the testing-and-activation phase for key ship systems. The vessel’s generators and advanced induction motors were turned on for the first time last summer.
Activation of combat systems, including the SPY-3 active phased-array radar (called the multifunction radar) as well as the total ship computing environment (TSCE), is set to continue through next year.
The three-ship Zumwalt class has been designed and armed to provide long-range fire support to Marine Corps and Army units operating ashore, but also will be fitted out for long-range air defense against high- and low-flying antiship missiles.
The Raytheon-developed TSCE, which serves a comprehensive ship computing-management system, integrates the SPY-3 with other combat systems, as well as with communications, engineering and damage control, bridge, navigation, and hull, mechanical, and electrical systems. The SPY-3 will serve as the primary air-defense sensor for the Zumwalts.
Denis Donohue, director of above-water sensors for Raytheon, said that development of the SPY-3 X-band technology began in the late 1990s. He pointed out that the X-band radar is employed for high-resolution, highly precise horizon-search and fire control. The X-band radar is effective for discrimination and targeting of antiship missiles approaching at low altitudes.
The Navy had planned to integrate the SPY-3 with a lower-frequency S-band volume-search radar (VSR), built by Lockheed Martin, to produce a dual-band radar (DBR). The VSR is intended for wide-area above-the-horizon volume search for high-altitude targets, including manned aircraft.
Engineering development models (EDMs) of both the SPY-3 and the VSR underwent successful testing at Naval Surface Warfare Center’s Port Hueneme Division. The SPY-3 EDM was tested on board the Navy’s self-defense test ship, the ex–Paul F. Foster, and later evaluated at the Navy’s Surface Combat Systems Center at Wallops Island, Virginia.
In 2010, as a cost-cutting measure, the Navy canceled the DBR for the Zumwalts by eliminating the VSR component. The decision required enhancements to the SPY-3 to enable it to conduct volume search.
Raytheon is the prime contractor for the DBR, now planned for the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), currently under construction at Huntington Ingalls Industries Newport News shipyard and scheduled for delivery in 2016. A second Ford-class CVN, the John F. Kennedy (CVN-79), is at an early stage of construction and is set for delivery in 2020.
Raytheon IDS also won a Navy award in October 2013 for design, development, testing, and delivery of the advanced missile-defense radar (AMDR), planned for next-generation Flight III Arleigh Burke–class destroyers.
A production SPY-3 went through successful exercises, including tracking of airborne targets, at Wallops last summer. Raytheon reports that during the Wallops testing the SPY-3 array, receiver/exciter, and signal data processor operated effectively in both the search and track modes, as well as for the added volume-search mission.
Donohue said the SPY-3 incorporates the function of the Mk-99 fire-control system, or illuminator, built by Raytheon for many years for the Aegis combat system in service on board Ticonderoga-class cruisers and Arleigh Burke–class destroyers. He added that the integration of the illuminator function into the radar helps to simplify the design of the ship’s deckhouse, which is fitted with numerous sensor apertures.
The Zumwalt is scheduled to start at-sea testing in Maine waters in 2015 for delivery to the Navy in 2016. Huntington Ingalls Industries, which is teamed with Bath for fabrication of the composite deckhouses for the first two ships, delivered the deckhouse for the Michael Monsoor, second in the class, in September. The Navy, however, decided last year to switch to a steel deckhouse for the Lyndon B. Johnson, the third Zumwalt, to be built by Bath. The Monsoor is planned for initial operating capability in 2018 and the Johnson in 2021.