Lockheed Martin's Sea TALON (Tactical Littoral Ocean Network) system successfully completed several significant testing milestones in its development as an Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) mission module for the U.S. Navy's Littoral Combat Ship (LCS).

Sea TALON is a unique undersea surveillance system that uses a Remote Towed Active Source (RTAS), a multi-band transducer networked with a Remote Towed Array (RTA), to provide search, detection and localization of quiet submarines in the littorals. Each array is towed by an unmanned, semi-autonomous, semi-submersible Remote Multi-Mission Vehicle (RMV), an ASW-variant of Lockheed Martin's AN/WLD-1 Remote Minehunting System. The RMV, launched and controlled remotely from a forward-deployed LCS, will provide the Navy's first unmanned, organic, real-time ASW capability, significantly enhancing ship and crew safety.

Recent testing conducted offshore of Lockheed Martin's Riviera Beach, FL facility verified two important parameters for the Sea TALON program's capabilities to serve aboard the LCS. The tests demonstrated that the RTAS and RTA could achieve the necessary depth for the best acoustic performance and that the RMV's stability was not affected during the towing of the active source and passive receiver at various speeds and depths.

"This marks another key milestone in the life of this essential program, which will provide an important new offboard ASW capability in the littoral battlespace at lower risk to ships and Sailors," said Captain Walt Wright, program manager at the U.S. Navy's LCS Mission Module Program Office (PMS-420) of the Program Executive Office for Littoral and Mine Warfare (PEO LMW). "Sea TALON successfully leverages several important Navy programs and technologies, including towed array development, use of common software baselines to achieve efficient use of computer programming resources, plus the unmanned vehicle and architecture from RMS. Its rapid development and maturity will enable successful delivery to the first LCS ASW Mission Package in 2008."

"We are delighted with the results of our array testing at sea, as well as the rapid progress of the overall program," said Jim Weitzel, vice president of Lockheed Martin's business unit in Riviera Beach. "Our teammates from the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Panama City, FL; the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Newport, RI; and the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in San Diego, CA have played a key role in the success of this program."

Further in-water testing is scheduled for late 2006 at the Navy's test facility at Seneca Lake near Syracuse, NY. Final integration and test will be conducted in 2007 at Lockheed Martin's Riviera Beach, FL facility.

Headquartered in Bethesda, MD, Lockheed Martin employs about 135,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services.

SOURCE: Lockheed Martin