Lockheed Martin to upgrade Navy SEWIP shipboard electronic warfare (EW) systems
WASHINGTON, 26 June 2015. U.S. Navy officials are asking engineers at Lockheed Martin Corp. to upgrade electronic warfare (EW) systems for Navy surface warships under terms of a potential $58.9 million contract announced Thursday.
Officials of the Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington are awarding a $8 million contract to the Lockheed Martin Mission Systems and Training segment in Liverpool, N.Y., for work involved with the shipboard Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program (SEWIP) Block 1B3 program.
SEWIP is an evolutionary acquisition program to upgrade the existing AN/SLQ-32(V) electronic warfare system through a modular, open-system approach. SEWIP provides enhanced shipboard electronic warfare for early detection, analysis, threat warning and protection from anti-ship missiles.
SEWIP Block 1 focuses on obsolescence mitigation and special signal intercept. This equipment will provide SEWIP with the ability to detect and identify additional threat emitters and provide warning to the combat system to enhance SEWIP capabilities.
Related: General Dynamics to enhance Navy SEWIP shipboard EW systems in $15 million contract
The General Dynamics Corp. Advanced Information Systems segment in Fairfax, Va., also is involved in SEWIP Block 1. The contract to Lockheed Martin announced Thursday includes options that could bring its cumulative value to as much as $58.9 million.
The SEWIP program is upgrading the Navy's existing AN/SLQ-32(V) electronic warfare system by improving the receiver and antenna group to meet current and anticipated threats, as well as to yield improved system integration, Navy officials say.
Since the SEWIP program started in 2002, General Dynamics has acted as prime contractor for SEWIP blocks 1A, 1B1, 1B2, and 1B3. Lockheed Martin Radar Systems won a Navy award for block 2 in late 2009.
In early 2012, Raytheon Co. and Lockheed Martin formed a team to capture a Navy award for the system's newest generation, SEWIP Block 3. The different SEWIP variants will provide more effective capability for countering hostile electronic signals actively and passively.
Related: Lockheed Martin to build shipboard electronic warfare prototypes in $39.1 million contract
The Lockheed Martin-Raytheon team demonstrated the Block 3 SEWIP in 2012 during the RIMPAC naval exercise in the Pacific. Lockheed Martin won a contract in 2013 to build advanced-development prototypes of the SEWIP Block 2 system.
Developed by Raytheon in the 1970s, the original AN/SLQ-32 systems employed passive radar technology for early warning, identification and tracking of enemy threats. Subsequent upgrades provided an additional active capability for simultaneous jamming of several different threats.
On the contract awarded this week, Lockheed Martin will do the work in Liverpool, N.Y., and Landsdale, Pa., and should be finished by January 2017.
For more information contact Lockheed Martin Mission Systems and Training online at www.lockheedmartin.com/us/mst, or Naval Sea Systems Command at www.navsea.navy.mil.
John Keller | Editor
John Keller is editor-in-chief of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine, which provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronic and optoelectronic technologies in military, space, and commercial aviation applications. A member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since the magazine's founding in 1989, Mr. Keller took over as chief editor in 1995.
