SILVERDALE, Wash. – Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command (NAVFAC) Northwest awarded a $21 million contract Sept. 13 for seismic repairs and life safety improvements to building 431 at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility (PSNS & IMF), Washington, the command announced Sept. 24.  

Building 431, used to repair and test ship parts, was built in 1934, with an addition built in 1943. 

“This award action is a continuing example of NAVFAC strengthening our shore installations through seismic resiliency and better positions our shipyard infrastructure for the advancement of naval lethality,” said NAVFAC Northwest Commanding Officer Capt. Ben Miller. “I am very pleased by the team effort to award the contract and look forward to working with our contractor partners to get this important project underway.”  

The work to be performed includes demolition, abatement, excavation, placement of micropiles, reinforcement of existing pile caps, placing grade beams and concrete slabs, reinforcing walls, among others, and salvage and reinstallation of existing government-owned equipment.  

“Our partnership with NAVFAC Northwest is vital to our mission success,” said PSNS & IMF Commanding Officer Capt. Jip Mosman. “This project is the continuation of several phased projects to repair building 431. Infrastructure upgrades are an important step in providing world-class facilities to the workforce and ensuring the shipyard’s ability to maintain, modernize and retire the Navy’s fleet for decades to come.”  

Work will be performed in Bremerton, Washington, and is expected to be completed by August 2023. Fiscal 2021 operation and maintenance (Navy) funds in the amount of $20.8 million are obligated on this award. Jabez-Absher-1, a Joint Venture, of Orting, Washington, received the award.  

ARLINGTON, Va. — Boeing has delivered the first of 78 contracted Block III F/A-18 Super Hornets to the U.S. Navy, the company said in a Sept. 27 release. Block III gives the Navy the most networked and survivable F/A-18 built with a technology insertion plan that will outpace future threats. 

“The fleet needs capabilities to keep its edge,” said Capt. Jason “Stuf” Denney, U.S. Navy F/A-18 and EA-18G program manager. “Getting the first operational Block III in our hands is a great step forward in supporting our capability and readiness goals.” 

Capabilities of the Block III include the advanced cockpit system with a 10-inch-by-19-inch touch screen display, enhanced networking, open mission systems, reduced radar signature and a 10,000-hour airframe.  

Block III’s new adjunct processor translates to a fighter that will do more work and in far less time increasing a pilot’s situational awareness. The jet is ready to receive apps-based solutions that will allow upgrades to the aircraft throughout its life span.  

“We invested in Block III technology and developed the capabilities in partnership with the U.S. Navy to meet its emerging requirements,” said Jen Tebo, Boeing vice president of F/A-18 and EA-18G programs. “The hardware upgrades are complete. Today we are maximizing the open hardware and software and developing the apps to keep Block III ahead of future threats. We are giving Navy pilots the tools to make the fastest and most informed decisions possible now and in the future.” 

Boeing will continue to deliver Block III capabilities to the Navy through the mid-2030s from three lines. One new build production, and two Service Life Modification lines extending the life and eventually upgrading Block II Super Hornets to Block III. The first aircraft delivered will complete the U.S. Navy flight test program before deploying to a squadron. 

BRAINTREE, Mass. — Ultra Electronics Ocean Systems (d.b.a Ultra Naval Systems & Sensors), has been awarded a $23.2 million fixed-price, cost-plus-fixed-fee and cost only modification to a previously awarded contract to exercise options for the production of Mk54 Mod 0 lightweight torpedo (LWT) array kits, associated production support material, spares and engineering and hardware support services, the company said in a Sept. 27 release.  

This contract combines purchases for the U.S. government, and the governments of the Netherlands, Belgium, New Zealand, Spain, and Brazil under the Foreign Military Sales program. This is option year three of the Mk54 Mod 0 LWT array kits program to supply array nose assembly kits. 

“As we continue to provide critical components of the MK54 lightweight torpedo, we understand the ongoing need to deliver reliable and effective undersea warfare capabilities to meet the anti-submarine warfare needs of U.S. and allied fleets,” said Martin Lewis, president of Naval Systems and Sensors. 

The Advanced Naval Technology Exercise – Coastal Trident 2021 Open House is taking place this week at the NavalX Fathomwerx Laboratory at the Port of Hueneme to examine innovative solutions for port and maritime security. Fathomwerx is a partner-run facility with the Naval Surface Warfare Center Port Hueneme Division (NSWC PHD), the Port of Hueneme, Economic Development Collaborative and Matter Labs.

According to NSWC PHD’s Brendan Applegate, the director for the exercise, Coastal Trident is an operational research program conducted to advance the state of the art in countering threats to port and maritime security and the global operations of naval forces. “ANTX-Coastal Trident is not just a Navy exercise, but rather a ‘whole of government’ effort to bring together involve non-DoD federal, state and local government partners, as well as academia and industry to respond to maritime security threats and incidents in port and coastal waters,” he said. “Coastal Trident combines scenario-based training, technical demonstration, field experimentation, and exercise activities, and involves the participation of more than 150 public and private sector organizations.”

Hybrid Event

Although teams will be conducting demonstrations throughout the week, the “kick-off” virtual event conducted via Zoom on Sept. 22 provided an overview of the Coastal Trident program and featured presentations by the operational stakeholders.

Participants representing stakeholders from Naval Surface Warfare Center, Naval Facilities Engineering and Research, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Department of Homeland Security and Naval Agility provided perspectives on the science and technology (S&T), research and development (R&D) and warfighter communities to communicate the “pull” from the warfighter, provide guidance and alignment for organizations, companies and academia seeking to develop and transition their technical solutions.

The Sept. 23 sessions in-person “open house” at the Fathomwerx facility focused on engagement between operational and technical stakeholders, with presentations on some of the project demonstrations conducted at the Port of Hueneme and at Fathomwerx. Solution providers also had an opportunity to follow up on the technical needs shared during the first day, and to propose solutions and discuss collaborations for future ANTX-Coastal Trident projects.

Applegate said many of the small companies participating in Coastal Trident do not have an adequate understanding of the Navy and its operational requirements or who would best benefit from their technologies.

“We have an environment where we can get a lot of organizations together to look at the technologies from a number of different perspectives, so there are more paths to success,” he said.” We can introduce our participants to all the different parties, the companies that are developing the technology, people who are going to use it, the program offices that are going to help acquire it, and the people that are going to be part of the logistics and sustainment pipeline. So, the goal is to bring all those people together in some form or another throughout the process.”

Coastal Trident takes advantage of the facilities and capabilities of NSWC PHD and Ventura TechBridge to support high-velocity learning and accelerate development, evaluation and identification of technology implementation to support naval forces with in-service engineering, maintenance and supportability; sensor data fusion, maritime communications and decision support; multi-spectral sensing, augmented (AR) and virtual reality (VR) and digital engineering; and unmanned systems (UxS) applications and countermeasures.

This year, the exercise is examining the operational and technical capabilities of port and maritime security organizations to counter asymmetric threats to the U.S. Marine Transportation Systems (MTS) and its associated personnel, operations, and critical infrastructure.

A number of teams have been working on their projects for many months, and may continue to leverage the knowledge and experience gained as a result of working together during ANTX.

“This event is the culmination of a lot of effort, but it’s just a part of the picture. We’ve been conducting experiments since May. We have 55 different projects, with about 850 people from 160 different organizations, that are part of the program this year,” Applegate said.

Team Entangles Target

In one scenario at the Port of Hueneme, for example, a team employed asmall unmanned vessel as a force multiplier to provide an initial response to a threat.

“The goal of our team is to detect and engage a high-speed leisure craft entering a security zone ‘on the plane’ without damage to the vessel or occupants,” said Matthew Searle, chief technology officer Marine Arresting Technologies (MAT) of Tarpon Springs, Florida. Our objective is to determine tactics, techniques and procedures for the use of unmanned platforms to deploy non-kinetic effectors, including launch and recovery procedures, the ability to maneuver and deploy payload, and to investigate if speed and stability of the platform is practical in a port environment.”

Working with MAT is SpotterRF of Provo, Utah, which is using its small radar to track targets and pass information to the command and control (C2) hub provided by Houston-based ION, which is demonstrating effective data fusion and tracking and intercepts of fast-moving targets.

In the actual demonstration at the entrance to the Port of Hueneme, the target — a Navy High-Speed Maneuvering Surface Target (HSMST) boat — was detected by the SpotterRF radar, queuing the ION C2 system, which directed the launch of the Theiss UAV and autonomously sent it to deploy the MAT drogue line ahead of the HSMST, which entangled the boat’s propulsion and slowed it, effectively allowing time for security personnel to respond, and preventing or disrupting the intrusion.

The demonstration took place during intermittent thick fog at the harbor entrance. The radar was not only able to track the boat, but also differentiate between the drone, sea birds, floating objects in the water and pedestrians on the shore, and track them all continuously.

For the demonstration, MAT fitted the UAV with a composite canister with a command-initiated life jacket air flask to inflate an airbag that discharges the arresting line in front of the vessel. The UAV can be recovered and the system reloaded for subsequent missions.

According to Ken Gardner, SpotterRF business development manager, the SpotterRF C550 perimeter surveillance radar has a range of about 1.5 kilometers, weighs 3.5 pounds and is about the size of a laptop computer (although the company has larger and smaller models), and multiple sensors can work together to cover larger areas. It can be set up or taken down in minutes, and is powered by regular 117-volt AC current or a small 24-hour battery.

Dave Gentle from ION said the input from the radar was fed into the C2 system which uses ION’s Marlin platform technology to plan and execute the missions for the UAV to autonomously deploy the arresting line and return.

SpotterRF CEO Frank Cristophersen said the ANTX provided a valuable opportunity to bring together a team to collaborate and demonstrate a creative technology solution, with the Navy providing targets, instrumentation and observers from the warfare centers and other organizations that otherwise would not be available to the individual companies.

LOCKPORT, La. — Bollinger Shipyards LLC announced on Sept. 24 that all 11 of its facilities are now open and operational following Hurricane Ida’s landfall last month near Port Fourchon, Louisiana, as a powerful Category 4 storm. Bollinger’s facilities in Port Fourchon, Larose, Lockport and Houma suffered significant damage as a result of the storm, which tied with last year’s Hurricane Laura and the Last Island Hurricane of 1856 as the strongest on record in Louisiana. 

“Despite the devastation and loss suffered throughout South Louisiana, the community has rallied and today we’re proud to welcome our workforce back to our yards across the state. This would not have been possible without the help of our employees, vendors, municipalities and our utility providers Entergy and SLECA,” said Bollinger President and CEO Ben Bordelon. “Each year brings a new storm season and, with it, its own unique set of challenges — this year has been no different. But to know our workers is to understand the strength and resiliency of the Cajun people. I’m incredibly proud of our workforce for their dedication to getting all of our facilities back up and running safely so that we can continue delivering for our customers. In spite of record storms or the ongoing COVID‐19 global pandemic, America’s maritime defense industrial base is unmovable.” 

In advance of the storm, Bollinger took steps to mitigate potential damages to its facilities and any resulting delays to its production schedules. Despite damages sustained to Bollinger’s Lockport facility, the 650‐man production line for the U.S. Coast Guard Fast Response Cutter program has resumed operations and Bollinger is on track to deliver the next vessel ahead of schedule. 

Following the storm, the first priority for Bollinger leadership was to ensure the safety of company employees and their families, which are all safe and accounted for. A number of employees lost their homes and personal property. Many remain without access to electricity and running water. To ensure that all employees would be taken care of, Bollinger established the Bollinger Employee Relief Fund to help cover qualified essential and emergency needs of employees throughout the recovery process. The fund is administered by the Baton Rouge Area Foundation, a leader in providing disaster relief. 

“In the immediate aftermath of the storm, I was overwhelmed by both the stories of devastation and loss from our community, as well as the offers of support from friends, vendors, customers and others all across the country,” Bordelon said. “When my grandfather founded this company 75 years ago, he knew that taking care of employees and treating them like family was critical to ultimately delivering quality products to our customers. That’s why creating the Employee Relief Fund was a no‐brainer. It was the right thing to do and we’ll continue to put our employees first — it’s in our company’s DNA.” 

ARLINGTON, Va. — The chief of Space Operations announced the transfer of Army and Navy satellite communications billets, funding and mission responsibility to the U.S. Space Force, according to a Defense Department release. 

Space Force Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond made the announcement at the Air Force Association meeting in Washington, yesterday. The transfers are scheduled to be effective Oct. 1, 2021, if the DoD budget is passed and signed. 

“We’re one team with our sister services, and over the last year and a half we have worked with the Army and the Navy and the Air Force to determine which capabilities come over to the Space Force,” Raymond said. “The intent was to consolidate [and] increase our operational capability, increase our readiness and do so in a more efficient manner.” 

The changes are “a first tranche,” he said. 

This is the latest step in building the new service. The idea behind the U.S. Space Force was “to create a unity of effort around our space enterprise,” said Space Force Lt. Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, the service’s deputy chief of space operations for operations, cyber and nuclear. Simply forming the service made the idea of looking for efficiencies possible.  

“We need to create this unity of effort around our space missions, to ensure we’re up to those challenges that we face, because the space domain has rapidly become far more congested, and far more contested than … when I was a lieutenant or a captain operating space capabilities,” Saltzman said.  

The performance of satellite communications will be enhanced by this sort of unity of effort. 

On the Navy side, the Navy’s narrow band satellite constellation will transfer 76 manpower authorizations to the Space Force, as well as 13 satellites — a mix of the new multi-user objective system and the ultra-high-frequency follow-on satellite constellation. 

The U.S. Army will transfer roughly $78 million of operations, maintenance and manpower authorizations. This will include five wideband SATCOM operations centers and four regional SATCOM support centers. This will affect about 500 manpower authorizations. 

All told, 15 global units with 319 military and 259 civilian billets from the Army and Navy combined will transfer to the Space Force.  

These are crucial defense capabilities. The units can’t stop just because the function is transferring to the Space Force. The capabilities are needed 24/7 and they will be, Saltzman said. 

The move puts basically all of the DoD’s narrowband, wideband and protected SATCOM under control of U.S. Space Force. “Now all of that — training, operations, acquisition and sustainment and follow-on activities, user allocations — all of that, will be consolidated under the Space Force to create that unity of effort, and hopefully gain the ability to be more resilient, more dynamic and ultimately more efficient with that mission set,” Saltzman said. 

The Soldiers, Sailors and Army and Navy civilians are not obligated to move to Space Force. There is a process and those involved must volunteer to move. For civilians, the process is relatively easy — simply moving from an Army or Navy system to becoming Department of the Air Force employees. For Soldiers and Sailors, this requires release by their respective services and acceptance by the Space Force. 

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy’s future Constellation-class guided-missile frigate (FFG) program is scheduled in spring 2022 for two program reviews that are milestones for the program to pass en route to production, the shipbuilder said. 

Mark Vandroff, CEO of Fincantieri Marinette Marine at Fincantieri Marine Group, the builder of the Constellation FFG, speaking Sept. 23 in a Defense One webinar, said the program’s Critical Design Review is scheduled for February 2022, followed in March by the program’s production readiness review. 

Vandroff, a retired Navy engineering duty officer, said his company expects to begin preparing for production of the first hull, FFG 62, in the spring of 2022 and to launch the ship in 2025. Delivery of the future USS Constellation is scheduled for 2026. 

A new Frigate Erection Bay at the company’s shipyard in Marinette, Wisconsin, will be able to house two FFG hulls (complete except for installation their mainmasts.) Vandroff said the bay will provide comfortable working conditions for shipbuilders during the Wisconsin winters. The FFGs will be 90% complete before they are launched. 

He also said that unlike the Freedom-class littoral combat ships the company is building for the Navy, which are side-launched from the building ways, the Constellation frigates will be launched with a Synchrolift. 

The Multi-Mission Combatants being built by Fincantieri also will be launched by a Synchrolift, Vandroff said. 

Fincantieri also is building the last four Freedom-class littoral combat ships (LCS 25, 27, 29, 31). 

Vandroff said his company has invested $250 million in capital investment and will need to hire 400 more shipyard workers over the next two years to meet the predicted workload. 

ARLINGTON, Va. — The General Dynamics Electric Boat shipbuilder is focusing on its own nuclear-powered submarine construction programs while standing ready to assist in any plan to build a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines for the Royal Australian Navy. 

Last week, the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia announced the formation of a partnership, AUKUS, with its first project being the construction of a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines for the Australian navy, instead of procuring French-designed diesel-electric submarines. 

“My message to my team is absolutely clear and that is: We stay focused at the mission at hand,” said Kevin Graney, president of Electric Boat, speaking Sept. 23 in a Defense One webinar. “The mission at hand is two Virginia [-class attack] submarines a year and Columbia [-class ballistic-missile submarine or SSBN]. Those are our No. 1 and No. 2 priorities, Columbia first and Virginia second. From that perspective there’s just an awful lot of work that we’ve got to do to get right and make sure we are supporting the U.S. Navy.” 

Graney said he saw opportunities for Electric Boat going forward but that with the 18-month consultation phase for the Australian navy there currently is no task yet on the program. 

“We stand ready,” he said. “The Naval Reactors team and the Navy knows we stand ready to support when tasked and, in the meantime, we’ve got plenty of work to do.” 

Graney said that six of the super modules of the first Columbia SSBN are under construction. It will be 2040 before the 12th and last planned Columbia SSBN is completed, he noted, and that the program would be the defining project for many of Electric Boat’s shipbuilders. 

Electric Boat has added more than 18,000 workers to the company over the last decade and has invested more than $250 million in workforce development. The company’s suppliers have increased from 3,000 to 5,000, located in all 50 states. The company is the largest employer in Connecticut and Rhode Island. 

Graney praised the efforts of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition during the COVID-19 pandemic for its response to the pandemic by accelerating funding forward to shore up suppliers and, thus, keeping them in business producing the materials and supplies needed to build submarines.    

The U.S. Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) is conducting its annual Warfare Innovation Continuum (WIC) scenario this week on a critical naval priority: the future hybrid force. 

Led by the NPS Naval Warfare Studies Institute (NWSI), WIC 2021 is addressing a “design challenge” of “How might emerging technologies, new operational concepts and alternative fleet designs contribute to a more effective naval force across the spectrum from competition to conflict, and how do the alternative fleet designs enhance the effectiveness and resilience of joint, combined and coalition forces across all domains?”

NWSI serves as a hub to facilitate teamwork and collaboration with the NPS innovation ecosystem to optimize NPS’ interdisciplinary educational and research response to naval warfighting needs.

The hybrid event is led by retired Capt. Jeff Kline, the NWSI WIC director, and research associate Lyla Englehorn, the NWSI concepts branch lead, and is taking place both in person on the NPS campus in Monterey and on the “Virtual Campus” via Microsoft Teams this week.

According to NPS spokesman Dave Nystrom, the organizers expect more than 140 participants, including facilitators, panelists, moderators, observers and students, with international participation from Australia, Indonesia, Ecuador, Greece, Romania and the United Kingdom.  “Participation teams” will look at the design challenge from different perspectives, with two working at the classified level.

“WIC leverages classroom projects, theses and research in advancing naval concepts, assessing new technologies and developing tactics while enhancing our students’ educational experience and sharpening their combat skills,” Nystrom said. “It’s a perfect example of how NPS combines student operational experience, defense-focused education and applied research to deliver real solutions and leaders educated to employ them.”

Retired Vice Adm. Ann Rondeau, president of NPS, told the participants that Hybrid Force 2045 theme will examine “how the naval services will operate in an era of robots, drones, crewed and un-crewed systems as part of the CNO’s vision outlined in the NAVPLAN and [Marine Corps] commandant’s vision outlined in Force Design 2030. As you consider this challenge, joint concepts and capabilities must also be accounted for as it is the Joint Force that will allow us to fight and win but will also give our nation’s leaders options in the competition phase or in preparation to employ our kinetic capabilities in conflict.

“This is the tenth year NPS has hosted the warfare innovation workshop, which is fully integrated into our year-long Warfare Innovation Continuum,” said Rondeau. “Following the workshop, the Continuum will carry on your ideas, proposed concepts and assessments of emerging technologies as capstone projects, theses work, prototyping, experimentation, modeling and simulation, and other research threads.  You are the first step in, and now completely part of, that Continuum.”

NWSI Director, retired Vice Adm. Dave Lewis added, “Using participant insights, NWSI will begin to inspire formation of various interdisciplinary research groups to address major topics of concern for our naval service. We anticipate the Hybrid Force 2045 Warfare Innovation Continuum to morph into a NWSI Research Task Force named “Hybrid Force 2045” in early fiscal year ’22. Other NPS Research Task Forces, which the WIC will inform, are the already established Task Force Overmatch and another Task Force planned for FY22 “Maritime Gray Zone.” Research groups will leverage the WIC and follow-on workshops as initiating events and as a construct to begin their own work,” Lewis said. “As some of the very best and brightest from industry, academia, system commands and defense labs, our WIC participants are invited to participate in these efforts.”

In its 70^th year, NPS provides defense-focused graduate education, including classified studies and interdisciplinary research, to advance the operational effectiveness, technological leadership and warfighting advantage of the naval service.

PATUXENT RIVER, Md. — The Navy’s Specialized and Proven Aircraft program office (PMA-226) recently delivered the first F-5N aircraft to Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, to begin ground and flight test of the F-5 block upgrade prototype project, the Naval Air Systems Command said in a Sept. 20 release.  

Aligned with the Navy’s strategic imperative of increasing capability and enhancing lethality, the newly redesigned tactical fighters will include features found on modern aircraft that improve both safety and readiness. 

The F-5 aircraft, performing for many years as a high-altitude, high-speed tactical fighter used by the Navy and Marine Corps as an adversary aggressor, lacks modern safety systems, avionics and common tactical capabilities found in modern aircraft. This F-5N aircraft is one of three F-5Ns that will be used as prototypes of the modernized cockpit, avionics and supporting aircraft architecture. These upgrades improve safety, capability and reliability, while resolving increasing obsolescence issues. 

Upon successful completion of test, the program office will use these upgrades as a major element in the conversion of the 16 F-5E and six F-5F aircraft the Navy recently acquired from the Swiss air force. The program office will convert these 22 aircraft under the Avionics Reconfiguration and Tactical Enhancement/Modernization for Inventory Standardization (ARTEMIS) program. PMA-226 successfully completed the independent logistics assessment for the ARTEMIS Program in June and anticipates reaching a Milestone C decision in early fiscal 2022. 

“Constructive collaboration with our partners, the fleet and the PMA-226 team drove mission success despite the technical, schedule and management challenges of integrating 21st-century technology into a 1970s airframe during the pandemic,” said Boyd Forsythe, PMA-226 adversary team lead.     

The F-5 aircraft receiving the block upgrade prototype modifications will be designated F-5N+/F+. The potential risk of loss of a pilot and/or aircraft will be reduced by adding necessary instrumentation that provides air-to-ground warning, severe weather protection and fuel level warnings. This upgrade will also add tactical capabilities designed to improve “friendly” force air-to-air training.  

Given the significant use of commercial-off-the-shelf components with well-defined maintenance and support equipment requirements for the block upgrade prototype configured aircraft, the product support strategy will be organizational level (O-level) to original equipment manufacturer. The block upgrade O-level preventive maintenance will consist of inspections, cleaning and scheduled maintenance tasks. Additionally, the O-level maintainers will load system software using currently fielded commercial off-the-shelf portable electronic maintenance aids. 

“This program will provide modernized aircraft with exceptional avionics and tactical capabilities which are needed to allow pilots to practice the tactics and techniques employed against a near-peer threat. Delivery of these improvements will ensure realistic and relevant tactical training the pilots need to win in combat,” said Capt. Ramiro Flores, PMA-226 program manager. 

PMA-226 is responsible for life cycle cradle-to-grave management of several legacy and out-of-inventory aircraft and engines, assigned by Naval Air Systems Command and contracted air services. Assigned platforms and services include: Adversary Aircraft (F-5, F-16); Contracted Aircraft Services; U.S. Naval Test Pilot School/Naval Postgraduate School T-38, H-72, X-26, U-6, NU-1B, O-2 and OH-58C; and Out of Active Navy Inventory aircraft T-2, H-2, H-3 and A-4, in support of the Naval Aviation Enterprise and international partners.