Software the Navy employs on submarines to expeditiously map waterway routes and chart possible hazards during mission planning is being installed on a surface ship for the first time, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) said Tuesday.

Photo: U.S. Navy
Photo: U.S. Navy

The ONR said its application utilizes automation and “apps and widgets” that can quickly review map markings of potential natural hazards and show possible routes, greatly reducing the amount of time required by planning missions manually. It rapidly merges a variety of data and integrates the information to show to sailors.

“Sailors spend days or even weeks planning a successful navigation route for a mission,” the ONR said. “They collect maps and charts, analyze them, double check them and cross reference information that comes in various hard copy and digital forms.”

With the software called the mission “planning application, “what now takes days could take just a few hours or less, freeing commanders to concentrate on safely executing the mission at hand,” the ONR said.

The Navy is putting the software on the USS Mobile Bay (CG-53), a Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser, this month. Deploying the system on the ship will allow the Navy to refine it for use with the rest of the fleet and use of it continues to transition into the submarine fleet, the ONR said.

Over the last 10 years, the Navy has experienced a couple embarrassing mishaps at sea resulting from either inadequate or incorrect mapping along with human error.

Last January, a Navy mine sweeping ship got stuck on a reef near the Philippines and had to be abandoned and later cut into pieces for removal. In 2005, a Los Angeles-class attack submarine, the USS San Francisco (SSN-711), struck an underwater mountain, resulting in the death of one crew member and injuries to many more. Repairs to the nuclear-powered vessel cost millions of dollars.