ARLINGTON, Va. – The Navy wants to start testing its Conventional Prompt Strike missile system aboard guided-missile destroyer USS Zumwalt (DG-1000) in 2027 or 2028, the admiral overseeing the effort said Thursday.
Land-based weapons testing is still ongoing for Conventional Prompt Strike after the Navy earlier this year delayed plans to field CPS aboard the Zumwalt class from Fiscal Year 2025 to FY 2026.
“The testing that we need to do to get to the final integration of Zumwalt, that’s irrespective of where the Zumwalt’s at, whether it’s in the water,” Vice Adm. Johnny Wolfe, the Navy’s director of strategic programs, told reporters Thursday at the Naval Submarine League’s annual symposium.
Zumwalt is currently at HII’s Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Miss., for a yard period preparing the ship to accommodate CPS. Part of that overhaul is removing the destroyer’s 155mm Advanced Gun Systems and fitting it with four large diameter tubes to accommodate the missiles for CPS. Wolfe said this work is complete and went well. The ship is expected to come out of the yard next year.
The CPS system is modular, featuring an all-up round missile and a separate modular payload adapter. Wolfe said the Navy is currently testing the adapter, the missile and the eject system.
“We’re testing and building the Payload Modular Adapter, aside from what’s going on on the actual ship,” Wolfe said. “The missile – the all-up round – we’re continuing forward with all that testing because the missile has to be what we call in-air launched because it’s so large. It’s not like any other type of missile. You don’t light this thing off inside.”
Zumwalt will have four large diameter tubes that can each fit three missiles, meaning each destroyer can carry up to 12 missiles. The Navy will set the requirements for how many missiles the ships will ultimately field at any given time, Wolfe said.
The money to pay for the payload module is coming from the DDG-1000 program office, but Wolfe’s office is managing the effort.
Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor building the missile, while Northrop Grumman is building the boosters as a sub-contractor. Dynetics, which is owned by Leidos and based in Huntsville, Ala., is building the hypersonic glide body. Northrop’s shop out of Sunnyvale, Calif., is building the payload module.
The rocket motors and the hypersonic glide body all get delivered to Courtland, Ala., where Lockheed takes over to assemble the pieces, Wolfe said.
“They’re responsible for all of the mechanics and brains and systems, software and all that stuff that goes in the middle and then they put it all together and it becomes an all-up round,” he said.
As for fielding the CPS system aboard the Virginia-class submarines, that timeline depends on when the Block V boats deliver to the Navy. Navy officials previously set FY 2028 as a target date to test the CPS system aboard the Virginia-class boats with the Virginia Payload Module.
“Conventional Prompt Strike will be ready,” Wolfe said.
“The question is going to be when will the first Virginia class with the Virginia Payload Module be ready to go based on what Adm. Rucker and that team is working to get that system out,” he added, referring to the Rear Adm. Jon Rucker, who leads the program executive office for attack submarines.
On the nuclear weapons side, Wolfe said he stood up a program office earlier this year for the sea-launched cruise missile after receiving a letter from Pentagon acquisition executive Bill LaPlante. The office has fewer than 30 people in it and is currently assessing how to achieve the timeline Congress gave the Pentagon. Lawmakers want the program to achieve initial operating capability by 2034, according to the Fiscal Year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act.
The Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review called for the SLCM-N program, but the Biden administration canceled the program when it published its own review in 2022. Republican lawmakers have supported the program’s creation, securing language in the FY 2024 NDAA calling for the Pentagon to create a SLCM program.
