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New SGS facility: two tiers before mast

By JIM JENKINS
NAS Patuxent River Public Affairs Department

PATUXENT RIVER NAVAL AIR STATION, MD-The Ship Ground Station here is the only land-based test facility in the world offering collocated shipboard combat and airborne mission systems for ship/air integration and interoperability testing. And USS Arthur W. Radford (DD 968) is helping to increase that ability. At least parts of her are helping.

No, Pax River doesn't have a Navy destroyer moored off the beach. But driving along the station's shoreline, passersby may notice a ship's mast poking out from the nearby trees. Radford's aft mast was acquired by SGS to further enhance the group's mission.

After the Radford's old mast was removed and shipped to Pax River, it was replaced with a new one, the Navy's first-ever advanced hybrid composite structure, known as the Advanced Enclosed Mast/Sensor system. The ship will be the platform for extensive testing of the new mast by the Navy. The new, advanced composite AEM/S mast, which the Navy describes as "revolutionary and spectacular," is a 93-foot-high, hexagonal structure, 35 feet in diameter, enclosing existing radars and providing important signature and other operational benefits. By enclosing major antennas and other sensitive equipment, the AEM/S system protects them from the weather, reducing maintenance as well as providing significantly reduced radar signature.

"We had [Radford's old mast] barged up from Pascagoula and then installed in conjunction with the new building," said Joel Carpenter, SGS chief engineer and team leader. "We will install systems on the mast as they would be installed onboard a deployed fleet vessel. The goal of the new site is actually to better represent the shipboard combat systems to anybody here at Pax for testing or for research and development."

Since SGS began operating in 1980 its mission has grown from just supporting the Light Airborne Multipurpose System, known as LAMPS, to being able to support many types of data interchange, information exchange, command and control, or information sensor surveillance for all of the different Navy aircraft here. Now, SGS is able to support any group or activity worried about ship/air integration and interoperability with the surface fleet, according to Carpenter.

"Aside from a battle group, Pax River is the only place in the world where you have collocated shipborne and airborne assets," Carpenter said. "So we're really providing a unique capability in a land-based test site that exists nowhere else in the world."

The SGS doesn't simulate the shipborne environment, it replicates it, Carpenter said. The station uses the actual combat systems found in fleet command and control centers aboard frigates, Aegis-class ships and aircraft carriers to perform tests with aircraft systems. Whereas a simulation would use a box of electronics to represent a piece of gear, the SGS team uses the actual gear Sailors use to complete their work.

According to Webster's Dictionary a simulation is a "sham object; a counterfeit," while a replication is "a copy or reproduction."

"We've got the real system that you'd find onboard ship," Carpenter said, "and we stimulate it such that it reacts accordingly. We have the heart of the [frigate] combat suite, the heart of an Aegis combat suite and the heart of a carrier combat suite. Hopefully in the future we will be able to expand those as well, to stay current."

The SGS team's new facility is nearly triple the size of its current spaces. It will not only replicate a ship's command center on the inside, it also looks like a ship on the outside, with the help of Radford's mast and a ship-like architecture that makes the building look like a ship's bridge superstructure.

Carpenter hopes the new SGS will be fully operational by May 1. The SGS team will bring the frigate command center online first, with the Aegis and carrier configurations to follow, he said.

"I have enough equipment such that I'll be able to keep this site operational until I get that site up and running," Carpenter said. "My customers will have zero down-time. They'll know we're transmitting and working from new coordinates, but aside from that we'll provide complete support."

-USN-