Lockheed Martin’s Littoral Combat Ship

MOORESTOWN, NJ.- Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] 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.