The Naval Sea Systems Command awarded Huntington Ingalls Industries [HII] an unspecified fixed-price-incentive-firm target contract modification on Tuesday to incorporate Flight III baseline on to the future DDG-125 Arleigh Burke-class destroyer.
Flight III will incorporate the SPY-6 air and missile defense radar (AMDR), upgrade the electric power and cooling capacity, and other associated changes. The SPY-6 is a Gallium-Nitride-based radar designed to increase the range, sensitivity, and discrimination accuracy compared to the SPY-1s on existing DDG-51s.
Incorporating the SPY-6 AMDR requires re-engineering the DDG to accommodate the radar’s larger size, powering, and cooling requirements,
The Navy highlighted the award value is considered source selection sensitive information because it expects to release a comprehensive solicitation for additional DDG-51-class ships in the configuration in the future. Therefore, the Navy did not make the value public.
HII likewise noted the value of the upgrade modification is withheld “due to business sensitivities.”
This award represents the first DDG-51 Flight III baseline contract award, the Navy said
“We have proven our success in the DDG 51 class over the past 30 years, and our shipbuilders are ready now to build the first Flight III ship,” Brian Cuccias, president of Ingalls Shipbuilding said in a statement.
DDG-125 will be named the Jack H. Lucas, after the World War II Medal of Honor recipient from the Battle of Iwo Jima. It is the fifth of five destroyers in a multi-year procurement HII was awarded in June 2013 (Defense Daily, June 4, 2013). HII said the DDG-125 is planned to be the 35th Aegis destroyer it will build for the Navy.
The work is scheduled to be finished by fiscal year 2024. 60 percent of the work will occur at HII’s facility in Pascagoula, Miss.
Last month Raytheon [RTN] won a $327 million modification option to produce the first three low-rate initial production (LRIP) SPY-6 AMDR units for delivery by early 2020 (Defense Daily, May 5).
HII noted the newest destroyer it built, the future USS John Finn (DDG-113), is scheduled to be commissioned on July 15 in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The company has five destroyers under construction: Ralph Johnson (DDG-114); Paul Ignatius (DDG-117), Delbert D. Black (DDG-119), Frank E. Petersen Jr. (DDG-121), and Lenah H. Sutcliffe Higbee (DDG-123).
Note: This article was updated later in the day with more information and company quotes.