Lockheed Martin recently completed the core combat management system software development for the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program, roughly a year before the ship is scheduled to be launched.

"LCS is a high-speed ship on a high-speed schedule," said Dave Broadbent, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems & Sensors' Littoral Ships & Systems line of business. "Early completion of the core combat management software is one example of minimizing risk in this new shipbuilding program."

The Lockheed Martin LCS team's Flight 0 ships will be equipped with COMBATSS-21, a component-based, total ship system that uses a battle-proven command and control core. It provides LCS with an open architecture core combat management system that supports the Navy's FORCEnet initiative to field a fully netted force.

"Our framework provides a common core capability to meet the mission requirements across the Navy's family of ships," said Broadbent. "COMBATSS-21 not only meets or exceeds all of the U.S. Navy requirements, but it is low- risk, affordable and completely scalable, making this system architecture very attractive for any class of naval ship domestically and internationally."

Through the use of an open business model, Lockheed Martin will continually evaluate new components for COMBATSS-21. In addition, COMBATSS-21 reuses proven components from Lockheed Martin, the U.S. Navy, domestic industry and international industry. This approach provides the U.S. Navy with a low total ownership cost and ensures ongoing capability improvements throughout the ship's lifetime. For example, by leveraging off-the-shelf components Lockheed Martin achieved greater than 95 percent software reuse and completed the Flight 0 COMBATSS-21 software well ahead of ship installation and below budget.

Lockheed Martin is now performing the integration and testing work in a new lab, the Mission Systems Integration Center (MSIC), in Moorestown, NJ. The MSIC includes a full-scale model of the mission control center that is designed to maximize human systems integration and enable high-fidelity testing. In addition, the new lab provides the ability to conduct interoperability testing with other systems, such as U.S. and international versions of the Aegis Weapon System, and Deepwater and DD(X) combat management systems.

"The ongoing testing and integration is a critical step in ensuring that COMBATSS-21 fully enables network centric operations across the navy and joint forces, well before installation on LCS 1," said Broadbent.

The first LCS, FREEDOM (LCS 1), is currently under construction at Marinette Marine in Marinette, WI, and will be delivered to the Navy in late 2006.

Headquartered in Bethesda, MD, Lockheed Martin employs about 130,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture and integration of advanced technology systems, products and services.

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SOURCE: Lockheed Martin