Overview of Valiant Shield 2020 experiment that paired a ground-based Aegis combat system with Army units. Lockheed Martin Image
Last year, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command quietly packed the combat system from a guided-missile destroyer into about the size of a footlocker, took it ashore and hooked it up to an Army artillery unit, an Air Force command node and an F-35 Lighting II Joint Strike Fighter. Read More
The Forge software factory was set up in Riverdale, Md. — just off the University of Maryland College Park campus — in March 2021 to begin using a rapid software development and testing approach to bring maintenance fixes and new capabilities to the fleet. USNI News photo.
RIVERDALE, Md. – The Navy’s potential enemies are quickly increasing the size and sophistication of their fleets, which means the Navy needs to move faster too in bringing in new capabilities. Read More
Artist’s concept of a HELIOS laser system aboard a U.S. destroyer. Lockheed Martin Image
RIVERDALE, Md. – The Navy continues to learn more about a pair of directed energy weapons, as the service installs the fourth and fifth dazzler system this year and begins land-based testing of a high-energy laser weapon, the program executive officer for integrated warfare systems told USNI News. Read More
Littoral combat ship Little Rock (LCS 9) is underway during a high-speed run in Lake Michigan during acceptance trials. Lockheed Martin Photo
The Navy will put a laser weapon on a Littoral Combat Ship for the first time this year, amid efforts to boost the LCS’s lethality and to develop and field a family of laser systems. Read More
USS John Paul Jones (DDG 53) launches a Standard Missile (SM) 2 during a live-fire test of the ship’s Aegis weapons system on Feb. 8, 2014. US Navy Photo
The Navy will deploy a “virtual twin” of the Aegis Combat System in February that, if the pilot program proves successful, could one day help the service test new Aegis upgrades or add-ons on a cruiser or destroyer at-sea without interfering with that ship’s actual combat system and ability to operate. Read More
USS Porter (DDG 78) conducts a structural test firing of SeaRAM in Spain on Feb. 28, 2016, as the first Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer with a SeaRAM installation. US Navy photo.
Rear Adm. Douglas Small relieved Rear Adm. Jon Hill as Program Executive Officer for Integrated Warfare System (PEO IWS) last week in a Washington Navy Yard ceremony. Read More
Rear Adm. Jon Hill, Program Executive Officer, Integrated Warfare Systems, speaks at a roundtable during the 2016 Sea-Air-Space Exposition in May. US Navy photo.
Rear Adm. Jon Hill was selected to serve as the next deputy director of the Missile Defense Agency, keeping a Navy voice in discussions about national and international ballistic missile defense. Read More
The Navy conducts its first live fire demonstration to successfully test the integration of F-35 with existing Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air architecture, Sept. 12, 2016. US Navy Photo
A Monday test pairing a Lockheed Martin F-35B Lighting II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) with an Aegis Combat System armed with a Raytheon Standard Missile-6 is the latest step in expanding how the Navy and Marine Corps will share data on future battlefields. Read More
Aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) sits pier side in the early morning light at Newport News Shipbuilding in 2014. US Navy Photo
Radar maker Raytheon has been awarded a $92 million contract to develop a new Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar for the U.S. Navy’s new Ford-class carrier fleet and big deck amphibious warships, company officials told USNI News on a Monday conference call. Read More
The guided-missile destroyer USS John Paul Jones (DDG-53) fired the anti-surface Standard Missile-6 Block I in January 2016, proving out the new weapon and its ability to integrate into the NIFC-CA architecture. US Navy photo.
Navy engineers are working to bring new aircraft sensors and new weapons into the Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air (NIFC-CA) architecture, with near-term goals of bringing in the F-35’s radio frequency (RF) sensor and the anti-surface variant of the Standard Missile-6. Read More
