General Dynamics Mission Systems has integrated a new anti-ship and land-attack cruise missile system on board the US Navy’s USS Gabrielle Giffords littoral combat ship (LCS) (LCS 10).
The installation of the MK 87 Mod 0 over-the-horizon Naval Strike Missile (NSM) onto the Independence-variant LCS is expected to increase the ship’s lethality and survivability.
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The new missile system will deliver improved mission readiness and defensive capabilities.
In a statement, General Dynamics Mission Systems said: “General Dynamics was able to integrate the NSM system by determining equipment placement, adapting the ship’s navigation system to provide unique signals to the missile system, designing the operational station in the integrated command centre, designing the system for providing specialised power to the MK 87 and conducting all of the analyses necessary for a safe and effective system.”
The company worked with Austal USA and industry partners to design structures and foundations and complete the integration in San Diego.
General Dynamics Mission Systems maritime and strategic systems vice-president and general manager Carlo Zaffanella said: “The open-architecture design of the ship’s computing environment and electronic systems made the design and integration of the new NSM system feasible in an accelerated timeline.”
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By GlobalDataProduced by Kongsberg, the NSM is a long-range, precision-strike weapon designed to fly at sea-skimming altitude and find and destroy enemy ships.
The weapon has a range of up to 100nm and emits low observable signals to avoid detection by radars.
General Dynamics is the prime contractor for the integration and installation of the NSM weapon on board USS Gabrielle Giffords.
The company will also integrate the capability on all US Navy Independence-variant LCS ships already in service.
As the systems integrator for the Independence-variant LCSs, General Dynamics handles the design, integration and testing of systems such as navigation, command, control, computing and aviation systems.
