Ingalls Today - Proven Capability In Surface Combatants

On April 29, 2002, the U.S. Navy selected a team led by Northrop Grumman Ship Systems to complete the system design for the Navy's advanced, 21 st century surface combatant, DD(X).

Northrop Grumman's Ship Systems sector will lead the system design, engineering prototype development and testing of the DD(X) System under a $265 million contract awarded by the Navy. The team includes The  Raytheon Company as mission systems integrator, and more than 30 of the nation's top engineering and maritime industrial companies.

The initial design contract has a total value of approximately $2.9 billion over four years. This phase of the program will initially employ more than 350 Northrop Grumman Ship Systems management, engineering, operations and logistical support personnel over the next four years.

This family of ships includes destroyers, cruisers and littoral combat ships, as well as technology to be backfitted into today's existing fleet of Aegis-equipped cruisers and destroyers.

In addition to four other Northrop Grumman sectors – Newport News, Information Technology, Electronic Systems and Integrated Systems – the DD(X) Gold Team will include United Defense, and former DD(X) Blue Team members General Dynamics' Bath Iron Works and Lockheed Martin Corporation.

This program began in June 1998, when teaming arrangements were established under which two competing total ship concepts and designs would be produced for the Navy’s 21^st Century surface combatant program.

In May 2001, the Navy suspended the competition for the new program, pending the release of the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). And on November 21, 2001, the Navy announced plans to replace the DD 21 program with the DD(X) program to further develop the advanced technology needed for transforming the Navy for the 21st Century.

DD(X) will build on the innovative engineering and technologies of the DD 21 program and will continue development and prototype testing of the critical major subsystems including the Advanced Gun System and its munitions, the SPY-3 / Volume Search Radar Suite, the Integrated Power System, the Vertical Launch System, and signatures and reduced manning technologies. As the technologies mature, they will be incorporated into other Navy programs to improve performance, reduce cost, and to serve as the technological basis for future naval platforms.

Northrop Grumman Ship Systems and  Raytheon comprised the "DD(X) Gold Team," with General Dynamics' Bath Iron Works partnering with Lockheed Martin and others on the "Blue Team."  Ingalls and Bath led the competing teams with their respective systems integrator partners. This process, the Navy said, was designed to ensure that efficiency and producibility during ship construction would be properly considered as part of the design process.

In May 1987, following major competition, Ingalls was selected by the U.S. Navy to participate in the construction of the Navy's Aegis guided missile destroyer fleet.

So far in the program, Ingalls has been awarded contracts to build 28 Aegis destroyers, with 17 already delivered. 

This program of highly sophisticated surface combatants is planned by the Navy to ultimately include 61 ships.

In February 1984, Ingalls was awarded a contract to build USS WASP (LHD 1), the lead ship in the Navy / Marine Corps team's newest class of multipurpose amphibious assault ships.

In September 1986, the Company was selected by the Navy to build three follow-on ships of the class, and in December 1991, Ingalls won a major competition to build a fifth LHD. 

That contract included an option exercised with Ingalls in December 1992 for the construction of LHD 6, and an option exercised in December 1995 for the construction of LHD 7.

The first seven Ingalls-built LHDs are now in the fleet. In July 2000, The U.S. Navy placed Ingalls under contract to begin design work leading to the construction of LHD 8. In April 2002, the Navy awarded Northrop Grumman Ship Systems a $1.369 billion contract for the construction of the ship.

On June 25, 2002, the United States Coast Guard awarded Integrated Coast Guard Systems (ICGS) a contract to carry out a far-reaching modernization program for the agency's DEEPWATER forces -- the ships, aircraft, command and control, and logistics systems that protect the United States and support the Coast Guard's many missions.

ICGS -- a co-equal partnership of Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) and Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE: LMT) -- was awarded a contract valued at $11 billion to modernize the Coast Guard's Deepwater assets over a 20-year period. The program's total potential value over three decades is estimated at approximately $17 billion. Deepwater is the largest recapitalization effort in the history of the Coast Guard and will involve the acquisition of up to 91 ships, 35 fixed-wing aircraft, 34 helicopters, 76 unmanned surveillance aircraft, and upgrade of 49 existing cutters and 93 helicopters, in addition to systems for communications, surveillance and command and control.

The U.S. Coast Guard’s Deepwater Program, formally known as the Deepwater Capability Replacement Program , is an innovative acquisition / program management approach to the recapitalization of the service's ships, aircraft and system platforms to support deepwater missions. The missions include Maritime Law Enforcement, Maritime Safety, National Defense and Marine Environmental Protection. Integrated Coast Guard Systems is focused on providing the Coast Guard with 21st century solutions to upgrade its 20th century, aging fleet.

ICGS will manage over 100 companies from 32 states, as well as four international teammates, to implement its comprehensive plan for the Coast Guard. The ICGS Open Business Model(TM) approach maximizes competition and ensures best value to the Coast Guard and the nation's taxpayers throughout the life of the program.

ICGS has structured a program that will greatly enhance the Coast Guard's core system capability within the first five years of the contract, and ensure a low-risk transition to the full vision of the Deepwater system. In the first five years, ICGS will:

• Provide a network centric capability of robust C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) resources on new and existing air, land and sea assets.
• Upgrade older assets until new ships, aircraft and systems are fielded.
• Provide more capable systems with greater speed, longer endurance, and better onboard working spaces, all with a common integrated support infrastructure that will significantly lower operating costs.
• Design, build and deploy the first of a new class of cutters for the Coast Guard -- the National Security Cutter (NSC).