The Navy issued an updated version of the final Request For Proposals (RFP) looking for industry proposals on design and construction of the new Auxiliary General Ocean Surveillance Ship (T-AGOS 25) class.
According to a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report released this month, the Navy plans to procure up to seven total T-AGOS 25 vessels. The ships support antisubmarine warfare by using the Surveillance Towed-Array System (SURTASS) to gather undersea acoustic data and transmit the data via satellite to shore station for evaluation.
The Navy is pushing to replace the current five aging T-AGOS 19-23 ships with the larger and faster T-AGOS 25-class. T-AGOS 25 is also called the T-AGOS(X) program.
According to CRS, the Navy estimates the new ship class will cost about $400 million each to procure and intends to use a single shipbuilder for all seven vessels.
“The Navy’s desire to replace the five in-service TAGOS ships with seven larger and faster TAGOS(X)s can be viewed as a response by the Navy to the submarine modernization efforts of countries such as China and Russia,” the report added.
The Navy originally issued the RFP on Nov. 19 and updated it on Dec. 21. Responses are due by April 19, 2022.