• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Successful Tomahawk Launch Aboard Florida Precursor to SSGN Conversion Experiment

NAVSEA News Wire

1/17/2003

By Maria Zacharias, Naval Sea Systems Command Public Affairs

ABOARD USS FLORIDA -- Two Tomahawk missiles were successfully launched from a missile tube of USS Florida (SSBN 728), an Ohio-class fleet ballistic missile submarine, in demonstration and validation (DEMVAL) tests earlier this week in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of western Florida.

The successful launches provided confirmation that a key element of the planned conversion of SSBNs to SSGNs - the delivery of conventional weapons from the submarine's missile tubes - will work.

"This first at-sea launch should demonstrate that all the modeling and engineering estimates, calculations and predictions were correct," said Capt. Brian Wegner, SSGN program manager. "All signs point to the fact that the entire concept is feasible."

The first launch on January 14 was of an instrumented Tomahawk Block III missile configured with an MK 106 Rocket Motor Assembly to obtain a boosted energy profile similar to the Tactical Tomahawk missile currently in development. The unarmed missile was launched vertically from one of the submarine's missile tubes and transitioned to cruise flight, flying its planned mission at the Eglin Air Force Base C Range using global positioning satellite navigation, with recovery occurring at Eglin.

A second launch on January 16 was also successful. While very similar to the first test, instead of launching a Tactical Tomahawk-type missile, the second test launched an unarmed instrumented Block III missile configured with an MK 111 Rocket Motor Assembly to obtain a normal Block III missile boosted energy profile.

For both tests the missile was placed within a Multiple All-Up-Rounds Canister (MAC) in such a configuration that it was similar to the tightly packed cluster of Tomahawk All-Up-Rounds (AURs) planned for SSGN Trident tubes. An instrumented test vehicle was collocated in the Trident launch tube to measure the effect of nearby launches on adjacent missiles.

"This was a test of the MAC more than anything else," noted Wegner. "We wanted to make sure that in the design of the MAC we mitigated risks associated with a missile firing in close proximity to others."

The DEMVAL included the collection of underwater launch risk assessment data, which will be used in the system development and design for the MAC being performed by Northrop Grumman with the Navy's Strategic Systems Programs (SSP) serving as the design agent.

The MAC will provide the support structure for up to seven Tomahawk AUR missiles in each of the large diameter Trident tubes on an Ohio-class submarine. To date, the MAC development process has included conducting land-based DEMVAL tests as part of an overall risk reduction plan culminating in this week's at-sea launches.

USNS Waters (T-AGS 45), a launch area support ship, also participated in the DEMVAL test. The ship's radar gathered information that will supplement other accumulated test data.

The test also provided underwater videotape for evaluation of launch phenomenology, temperature and pressure transducer data related to hatch opening, closure and adjacent closure survivability, debris radar data for characterization of debris patterns, and flow field instrumentation from above the launch tube for correlation with launch models. This data will be analyzed and used to correlate the results of previously completed ground-based DEMVAL testing and computer-based simulation.

The at-sea DEMVAL was coordinated by the SSP, in conjunction with the SSGN Program Office, Naval Sea Systems Command, and the Tomahawk Missile System Manager, Naval Air Systems Command.

The SSGN at-sea DEMVAL test is being followed by and coordinated with the Giant Shadow experiment next week in the Bahamas. The experiment, the first Limited Objective Experiment under the Chief of Naval Operations Sea Trial initiative, includes an Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance and Nuclear-Biological-Chemical Force Protection Mission Experiment in support of special operations forces utilizing the same submarine.

The SSGN at-sea DEMVAL test and Giant Shadow experiment demonstrate the advantages of the Sea Trial process, the key enabler for achieving the Navy's Sea Power 21 vision.

These and future demonstrations will integrate war gaming, experimentation, and exercises into rapid concept and technology development that will deliver improved capabilities to the Fleet as swiftly as possible.