Royal Navy’s Trafalgar-class submarine, HMS Tireless

The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has awarded a contract to Babcock to provide a in-service support update to Eddystone, the communications electronic support measures (CESM) system deployed on the Royal Navy’s Trafalgar-class submarines.

Under the terms of the four-year contract, Babcock will provide post-design services and in-service support for Eddystone, as well as supporting shore infrastructure.

A range of technical services such as engineering support, integrated logistics support, obsolescence management, configuration management, helpdesk, stores management, and ensuring fully functional capability on the in-service platforms are also included.

Babcock will partner with Argon ST to ensure that full capability is delivered at the frontline.

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Babcock received a contract in 2012 to undertake a software update on Eddystone, introducing enhanced system functionality and addressing hardware obsolescence issues.

This was aimed at ensuring an improvement in the operational capability of the platform out of service date (OSD).

Babcock’s Integrated Systems & Support group director Charles John said: "The Eddystone system remains at the forefront of CESM capability, and this contract award demonstrates confidence in Babcock’s ability to support this key capability, delivering a very high system availability with the systems performing well while on mission."

"The Eddystone system remains at the forefront of CESM capability, and this contract award demonstrates confidence in Babcock’s ability to support this key capability."

Armed with Raytheon Tomahawk Block IV land-attack cruise missiles (TLAM), the BAE Systems-built Trafalgar-class submarines were preceded by the Swiftsure-class and later succeeded by Astute-class submarines.

The 85.4m-long and 9.8m-wide submarines feature Thales Underwater Systems 2076 Stage 4 integrated passive/active search and attack sonar suite with bow, active intercept, flank and towed array sonar.

Powered by the Rolls-Royce PWR1 pressurised water-cooled nuclear reactor, the 5,200t submarines can accommodate a crew of up to 130 and a maximum speed of 30k.


Image: Royal Navy’s Trafalgar-class submarine, HMS Tireless, conducting a mission at sea. Photo: courtesy of the Royal Navy.

Defence Technology