By Geoff Fein
Early next year, the Navy will install and begin testing Raytheon‘s [RTN] ship self-defense system (SSDS) onboard the USS Nimitz (CVN-68) aircraft carrier, leading up to certification of the company’s ship self-defense systems.
Additionally, this fall, Raytheon’s initial export approval has been received for SSDS.
“That means we can partner with the Navy and pursue international offerings for SSDS through their Foreign Military Sales program,” Karl Bunker, senior program manager for surface command and control, told Defense Daily in a recent interview. “There are a number of opportunities in the near term for that.”
Until the first production system is delivered for installation on the Nimitz, Raytheon and the Navy will continue testing SSDS, Bunker said.
The current phase of testing is called warfare system integration and interoperability testing, Bunker said.
Under this phase, the Navy is testing to validate that the system performs in a network with other combat systems. It began earlier this year and is scheduled to continue through the beginning of ’08, he added. That testing is conducted at Navy’s Integrated Combat System Test Detachment in San Diego.
“As we go through this integration and testing activity, I think we’ll do a good job of proving out that the open architecture mantra the Navy is trying to move toward is achievable,” Bunker said.
By SSDS being compliant with the Navy’s open architecture standards, it will enable Raytheon to incorporate open architecture compliant components into the system much more easily, share components with other systems and services, and bring functionality to the warfighter quicker, Bunker said.
“It has a lot to do with the flexibility of the design and efficiency that we have with the ability to change that system, which in the end makes it more affordable for the Navy,” Bunker said.
The $16.9 million Navy contract Raytheon currently has in place calls for three systems with an option for four additional systems, Bunker said.
The first system will go to the Nimitz, followed by the USS San Antonio (LPD-17) and LHA-6, Bunker said.
Raytheon wrapped up its in-house testing of SSDS’ migration to the Navy’s open architecture standards, Bunker noted. In July, the company was awarded a contract for the three systems.
The SSDS open architecture system is part of the Navy’s periodic technology refresh program for aircraft carriers and large deck amphibs, Bunker said.
LPD-17 today is configured with the original baseline hardware for SSDS, so as part of her periodic updates the ship is scheduled to get upgraded to the open architecture version of the system in ’08, Bunker said. “So the whole LPD-17 class goes through this same refresh cycle.”
The USS New York (LPD-21) will be the first ship to get the new open architecture version of the hardware and software, he added.
The big thing SSDS provides is excellent situational awareness for the warfighter, Bunker said.
SSDS takes advantage of all the sensors and weapons that are indigenous to the ship, as well as allowing the ship to coordinate with other assets in a battle group or expeditionary strike group, so you can coordinate protection of the ship and group, he added.
“In general that is what you expect any combat management system that you field…you expect it to be able to do that,” Bunker said.
What makes SSDS better, he added, is its openness…the ability to add functionality without making major changes to the system…the ability to take components that are developed within SSDS and use them elsewhere, Bunker said.
“For instance the Marine Corps’ common aviation command and control system uses the track management capability that was developed within SSDS.
They took that lock, stock, and barrel, and used it as the heart of their common aviation command and control system, which is also a Raytheon product,” Bunker said. “We’ve taken advantage of the integration and development knowledge that we built on LPD-17 and the Zumwalt-class, and used that to further our open architecture design of SSDS.”
The first technology refresh was to replace some of the commercial off the shelf (COTS) components that were reaching the end of their lives, Bunker explained.
“But also to take advantage of the faster processing speeds and capabilities that were available at that time that weren’t available during SSDS’ initial development,” he added. “When we did that first technology refresh, it really was designed to offset obsolescence issues that would have come up if we tried to stay with the original design.”
Raytheon’s open architecture development, which the company considered the second technology refresh, made a more significant change going from less open computer processors to a more open Intel [INTC] x86 based processor, Bunker said.
Hardware is refreshed every four years and software gets refreshed more frequently than that, Bunker said.
“We use a common software baseline that supports all of our hardware baselines. That is one of the things that makes this system affordable,” he said. “We are able to update the software pretty much continuously, allowing the Navy to take the latest version of the software and apply it to whichever ship [that is available] they would like to.”