US Navy commissions littoral ship Nantucket
The vessel will be the 14th Freedom-class littoral ship in the Navy’s current fleet.
Selex has been awarded a contract from Cobham Aviation Services in Australia for the supply of its Seaspray 5000E Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) surveillance radars, as announced on 16 April.
Cobham will use the radar to equip the Challenger CL-604 aircraft which will perform search and rescue (SAR) services for the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA).
The Seaspray 5000E is ideally suited for SAR operations. In addition to its high reliability, compact size and ease of use, the radar’s AESA technology-enables small target detection capability.
Cobham's AMSA SAR contract will run for 12 years from August 2016, when the current contract expires. Under the contract, the company will acquire, modify, commission, operate and maintain four Challenger CL-604 aircraft from bases in Cairns, Melbourne and Perth to provide SAR capabilities over land and at sea. The aircraft will be available for SAR missions by AMSA at short notice 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The vessel will be the 14th Freedom-class littoral ship in the Navy’s current fleet.
One of the vessels present in both cases was armed with hypersonic cruise missiles.
Two modular frigate designs will be considered as the replacement to Australia’s ageing Anzac-class.
The vessel, DDG 122, will be named after enlisted marine John Basilone.
The contract could rise to as much as US$1.1 billion and follows an announcement last month that Kongsberg was building a missile production facility in the US to meet burgeoning global demand.
The use of Passive Propagation Technology significantly reduces the risk of Lithium-ion batteries for use in torpedo tube launched AUVs.