The Navy recently awarded Lockheed Martin [LMT] a $35.8 million contract to design and produce antenna buoy systems that will significantly expand the communications capabilities of submarines while they are submerged, the company reported yesterday.
The Navy’s Communications at Speed and Depth (CSD) program will use expendable submarine and air-launched communications buoys to enable submarines operating below periscope depth and at tactical speeds to communicate with surface ships and land-based assets via satellite networks. All classes of Navy submarines will be equipped with this capability, according to Lockheed Martin.
“CSD (communications at speed and depth) is vitally important to ensure the submarine, with its very capable sensors and weapons, remains plugged into the modern strike group network. Because of this, CSD is the submarine force’s number one communication priority and is one of the top three Navy communication priorities today,” Cmdr. Dean Richter, then-program manager, communications at speed and depth, told Defense Daily in a 2005 interview (Defense Daily, Aug. 5, 2005).
Richter, who is now Program Manager-PEO C4I/Submarine Integration Program Office (PMW 770), said: “With this capability, submarines become a fully-integrated fleet asset with on-demand access to the Global Information Grid.”
Lockheed Martin will lead an industry team that will develop three types of expendable communications buoys: two submarine-launched tethered buoys that provide real-time chat, data transfer and e-mail capabilities via either Iridium or UHF satellites and an untethered, acoustic-to-radio frequency gateway buoy that can be launched from a submarine or maritime patrol aircraft to enable two-way data transfer between a submerged submarine and surface assets, the company said
The contract also includes production of associated shore and onboard equipment needed to support the systems. If all options are exercised, the cumulative value of the contract is estimated at $177.9 million.
The Lockheed Martin-led team, which includes Massachusetts-based Ultra Electronics Ocean Systems and ERAPSCO, has more than 50 years of experience in the design and development of expendable devices. ERAPSCO, a joint venture between Florida-based Sparton Electronics and Indiana-based Ultra Electronics. The joint venture is a leading designer and manufacturer of expendable underwater transducer and sensor products for the Navy and its allies, according to Lockheed Martin.
While at periscope depth a submarine can link into the network. However, having to remain at that depth for any period of time takes away a submarine’s stealth advantage.
Back in 2005, the Navy was conducting an Analysis of Alternatives to determine the right mix of technologies and systems to procure to provide the service with that incremental capability over time, Richter said (Defense Daily, Aug. 5, 2005).
At the time, candidate systems included solutions involving legacy antennas, one and two-way expendable communication buoys (optically tethered), acoustic communications (ship to ship, ship to unmanned underwater vehicle, ship to acoustic gateway buoy, etc.), acoustic to [radio frequency] gateway buoys (of various sizes and capabilities, including one- way tactical pagers, and two-way buoys), larger optically tethered two-way buoys, towed buoys, and optical one and two-way systems.
No single solution provides us the ‘Holy Grail’: the high data rate capability at all conceivable depths and speeds in all major ocean areas of the world. They all have their pros and con, Richter noted back in 2005.