By Geoff Fein
Lockheed Martin‘s [LMT] effort to enable submarines to have two-way communications at speed and depth cleared critical design review (CDR) earlier this month and will move to a testing phase in August before delivering engineering development models (EDM) next year, according to a Navy official.
The company is developing three capabilities at the same time, two tethered communications buoys and a more autonomous gateway buoy, Brent Starr, the Navy’s communications at speed and depth (CSD) principal acquisition program manager, told Defense Daily recently.
The acoustic-to-radio-frequency gateway system may be the most unique of the three efforts in that the untethered buoy can be deployed from an aircraft or launched from a submarine’s trash disposal unit, he added.
The goal of the CSD program is to keep submarines from having to surface to periscope level to communicate with surface ships or shore assets, Starr said.
“The goal here is to give an ASW (anti-submarine warfare) coordinator sitting on an aircraft carrier, or a battle commander at shore, the ability to reach out and communicate with any submarine that there is a requirement to communicate with,” Starr added. “You could fly an aircraft from shore or a aircraft carrier, drop a buoy in the vicinity of where you know a submarine is nearby or close to and you could, within a matter of minutes, have contact with the submarine.”
Another scenario would be to have an aircraft launch a buoy, communicate with the submarine and then have the submarine launch an ultra high frequency buoy to communicate at either closer or further distances, Starr noted.
A submarine could also use one of the other tools being developed–a tethered expendable communication buoy either with a UHF payload or Iridium payload–to communicate at the same time, he added.
“We wanted to give the Navy multiple options to communicate. If there is a problem with the Iridium network or a problem with the UHF satellite, you will have multiple ways to communicate. That was the goal there, Starr said.
“Taking it one step further, we are talking about submarines right now. However, there is a larger vision in the Navy to eventually move to a UUV (unmanned underwater vehicle) application for a technology such as this,” he added. “So there is utility in these buoys that are not only to communicate with submarines but actually the Navy vision is to use them on UUVs as well.”
Increment 1, the current effort under which Lockheed Martin is developing EDMs, ends in July 2011, Starr said.
A schedule for Increment 2 has not yet been developed, he added.
“That is based on the priority of when the UUV development would need to take place,” he said. “Right now, what we are going to do, and given the priorities within the Navy from the CNO, is to finish up with Increment 1 testing and see where we go from there.”
While the focus of the CSD effort is to develop lines of data communication between tethered and untethered buoys, Starr noted the Navy does have the ultimate goal of moving forward and away from buoys. “Maybe move toward a laser technology, but that’s not within the next five years.”
Lockheed Martin has done a number of at-sea tests on all three types of buoys, Rod Reints, senior program manager for CSD, told Defense Daily during the same interview.
“At CDR, we presented all the testing to date,” he said. “One of the reason we have been able to continue [is that the] design has matured to a point and the risk has been lowered to a point where it makes sense to keep continuing to build product.”
The next milestone for the program is a Test Readiness Review scheduled for Aug. 16 followed by the System Verification Review in mid-October, Starr said.
“The Test Readiness Review will ensure the program is ready to go to test,” he said. “The purpose of the System Verification Review is to ensure that the program is ready to go into LRIP (Low Rate Initial Production) phase of acquisition.”
Currently, the Navy wants to see the program go through the testing phase so they are buying two EDM quantities at this point. Those systems will be used for testing, Starr said.
“Currently, we are buying 50 of each type of buoy,” he said.
The Navy had originally planned to purchase 95 of each, Starr noted.
“The CONOPS showed they didn’t need as many to fulfill the missions the Navy is looking for,” Reints said.
“We were concerned at first that we would need more (systems) to conduct testing, however [from the] results so far that Lockheed Martin has presented the government has a high level of confidence they are going to work,” Starr added. “So, we felt less buoys were needed for EDM quantities.”