Naval Undersea Warfare Center

Naval Undersea Warfare Center

Executive Summary

In 2005, Kratos won a major contract supporting the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) in Keyport, Washington, with a range of engineering and technical services. To improve the war-fighting capabilities of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Kratos is facilitating equipment installations aboard Fast Attack and Fleet Ballistic Missile Submarines. The award, with a potential value of $30 million over a five-year period, was the first of three task orders that Kratos has won from NUWC.

Situational Overview

The Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) is the U.S. Navy’s full-spectrum research, development, test and evaluation, engineering and fleet support center for submarines, autonomous underwater systems, and offensive and defensive weapons systems associated with undersea warfare.

Submarine.NUWC’s Division Keyport engaged Submarine Alteration Installation Teams to enhance its combat control and C4I (Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence) systems. As a subcontractor to Northrop Grumman, Kratos was selected to provide engineering, installation, maintenance and technical support to advance the Navy’s critical capabilities.

Unique Challenge

Kratos was tasked with advancing the technological and war-fighting capabilities of Navy submarines in the Pacific Fleet. Working primarily aboard submarines located in San Diego, Hawaii and Guam, Kratos was charged with:

  • Developing installation packages in support of combat systems and C4I upgrade.
  • Installing the C4I upgrades.
  • Conducting pre-and post-installation testing and equipment operational verification.
  • Maintaining a quality assurance program approved by the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA).

Kratos’ quality engineering services have been essential to providing the Navy with the necessary “surge capacity” to meet escalating demands on the Pacific Fleet in the face of significant security threats around the world.

Kratos Solution

Because of its expertise in command and control systems, Kratos was tapped to provide a full spectrum of services to NUWC under the multi-year contract. Its engineers were asked to offer installation, testing, assurance and maintenance services for the following systems:

  • Integrated Augmentation Displays (IAD) Device: a video Local Area Network (LAN) that ties together the ship’s sensors with output displays in various locations on the ship.
  • Automated Identification System (AIS): a shipboard broadcast system that improves ship-to-ship identification.
  • AN/BYG-1: the latest combat system for the Navy Submarine Fleet.
  • Total Ship Monitoring System (TSMS): a system that maximizes each submarine’s acoustic stealth advantage by monitoring “self noise” and sending alerts in the event of degradations to desired conditions.

Empowering Benefits

Kratos’ quality engineering services and systems installation support have provided the Navy with significant benefits to date, including:

  • Rapid Technology Insertion: Kratos is assisting in the update of technology on the ships as quickly as possible without intrusive or extensive redesign. By using open architecture hardware and software, the Navy is making strides toward its goal of rapid technology insertion.
  • Enhanced Naval Capabilities: By using commercially available, widely accepted interface standards and commercial products from multiple vendors, Kratos is helping the Navy keep pace with rapidly changing technologies and operational needs. Kratos’s installation services give the Navy the performance and scalability to support a variety of submarine missions.
  • Reduced Costs: By combining military and commercially available technologies and utilizing local area technicians to perform the modernizations, Kratos is helping the Navy lower its expenses while gaining the benefits of interoperability, flexibility and reliability.
  • Decisive Superiority: By implementing new systems quickly and effectively, Kratos is enabling the Navy to make better decisions faster. The systems provide the maximum situational awareness to the crew, giving them the information they need to gain a strategic advantage.

In the Base Year of the contract, which ended in March 2007, Kratos met all requirements of the contract, providing NUWC and Northrop Grumman with the surge capacity to meet emergent requirements in Hawaii, San Diego, Norfolk and King’s Bay, Georgia.

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