Littoral Combat Ship Combat Management System Readies for Sea

MOORESTOWN, N.J.: Lockheed Martin has successfully integrated key shipboard combat system components aboard the U.S. Navy's first Littoral Combat Ship, PCU Freedom, with COMBATSS-21, the ship's core combat management system.

Key components integrated with COMBATSS-21 include the radar, gun weapon system, missile launcher, decoy launcher, and electronic warfare system. The successful integration and testing validated Lockheed Martin's open architecture approach with both COMBATSS-21 and Freedom itself. During the integration testing, targets of opportunity were engaged and tracked to demonstrate operability.

In a separate but parallel milestone, Lockheed Martin established the Mission Package Computing Environment infrastructure and commenced integration activities on board Freedom with the ship's consoles and equipment cabinets.

"COMBATSS-21 is fully installed aboard Freedom and fully operational," said Rich Calabrese, Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems & Sensors' director for Mission Systems. "The successes with COMBATSS-21 exemplify the Navy's desire for combat system commonality and improved interoperability across the surface fleet, and it represents a major milestone for the mission package concept on Freedom."

In March, Lockheed Martin completed endurance testing with COMBATSS-21 and the Mission Package Command and Control system at its land-based integration center in Moorestown, NJ. The endurance test was the latest of a series of tests and demonstrations leading up to the final software load onboard Freedom:

-- In August 2007, Lockheed Martin successfully integrated the Navy-provided Littoral Combat Ship Mine Warfare mission module software with COMBATSS-21;

-- In January 2008, Lockheed Martin successfully integrated the Navy-provided Mission Package Computing Environment software with shipboard equipment enclosures.

Freedom's COMBATSS-21 is a total ship combat management system, designed to deliver capability rapidly and affordably. Originally built through a high degree of reuse from the Aegis Weapon System, COMBATSS-21 is now part of a common product library that delivers to Aegis, LCS, the U.S. Coast Guard's Deepwater program and international navies.

Headquartered in Bethesda, MD, Lockheed Martin employs about 140,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. The Corporation reported 2007 sales of $41.9 billion.