Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) Newport personnel broke ground July 31 on the Maritime Subsurface Sensor Operations Laboratory that will house a variety of unique equipment used in maintaining U.S. Navy towed sonar array systems.
The $11 million project, includes a 40,000-square-foot, single story addition to the NUWC Newport facility that will centralize all research, development, acquisition, testing, refurbishment and maintenance of these systems.
"When completed, the combination of existing labs and the new facility will be the U.S. Navy's only facility capable of providing development and full life cycle support of towed arrays for both submarines and surface ships," said Dr. Paul Lefebvre, NUWC Newport technical director. "I am confident that this laboratory will help us remain on the cutting edge of undersea technology."
Much of that equipment in the new facility will relocate to Newport from a Space and Naval Warfare Command facility in Virginia, part of the overall Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) legislation in 2005 to relocate all maritime subsurface sensors functions within the U.S. Navy at NUWC Newport.
"The BRAC commission recognized that collocating repair and overhaul work with the engineers involved with the design and acquisition of new and upgraded systems will result in synergies to improve quality and service to the Navy fleet," said Capt. Michael Byman, commander, NUWC Newport.
NUWC Newport, a field activity of Naval Sea Systems Command, is the 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. (NNS)
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