USS Zumwalt Successfully Completes First Standard Missile Shot
USS Zumwalt Successfully Completes First Standard Missile Shot. The USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000) successfully executed the first live fire test of the MK 57 Vertical Launching System with a Standard Missile (SM-2) on the Naval Air Weapons Center Weapons Division Sea Test Range, Point Mugu, Oct. 13.
As the first-in-class ship, USS Zumwalt successfully demonstrated its capability to detect, track and engage an Anti-Ship Cruise Missile threat with a SM-2. The structural test fire assessed the material readiness of the ship against shock and vibration of the weapon firing, as well as measure any hazards or degradations as a result of firing live ordnance.
Today’s successful test not only demonstrates the ship’s capability to fire missiles and conduct self-defense, it is also a significant step toward more advanced combat system testing and operations for our Navy’s most technically innovative warship,” said Capt. Matt Schroeder, DDG 1000 program manager. “The USS Zumwalt crew and Surface Development Squadron One are working hand-in-hand with the acquisition community to advance this ship’s operational capability.”
The ships’ stealth and ability to operate in both the open-ocean and near-shore environments creates a new level of battlespace complexity for potential adversaries. The Zumwalt class will also operate as a key enabler in the acceleration of new warfighting capabilities and rapid development and validation of operational tactics, techniques, and procedures.
DDG 1000 achieved sufficient combat system installation and activation earlier this year for the Navy to take final delivery and transition to the next phase of developmental and integrated at-sea testing.
At 610 feet long and 80 feet wide, Zumwalt is 100 feet longer and 13 feet wider than the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, providing the space required to execute a wide array of surface, undersea, and aviation missions.
The Zumwalt-class (DDG 1000) is the largest and most technologically advanced surface combatant in the world. USS Zumwalt is the lead ship of a class of next-generation multi-mission destroyers designed to strengthen naval power from the sea. The Zumwalt-class destroyer will be capable of performing a range of deterrence, power projection, sea control, and command and control missions while allowing the Navy to evolve with new systems and missions. Stealthy, powerful, and lethal, the Navy created the Zumwalt-class to bridge from current needs to future capabilities, adding space and power accommodating systems not yet imagined but designed to counter adversaries that challenge us now and in the decades to come. Designed to combat the threats of today as well as those of coming decades, these ships are equipped with numerous advanced technology and survivability systems. DDG 1000 is the first U.S. Navy surface combatant to employ an innovative and highly survivable Integrated Power System (IPS). Key design features that make the DDG 1000 IPS architecture unique include the ability to provide power to propulsion, ship’s service, and combat system loads from the same gas turbine prime movers.
DDG 1000’s power allocation flexibility allows for potentially significant energy savings and is well-suited to enable future high energy weapons and sensors. The wave-piercing tumblehome hull design has facilitated a wide array of advancements. The composite superstructure significantly reduces radar cross section and other signatures, making the ship harder to detect by enemies at sea. The design also allows for optimal manning with a standard crew size of 147 sailors, plus an air detachment of 28 thereby decreasing lifecycle operations and support costs. DDG 1000 will employ active and passive sensors and a Multi-Function Radar (MFR) capable of conducting area air surveillance, including over-land search and track, throughout the extremely difficult and cluttered sea-land interface.
The Navy procured three Zumwalt class destroyers which are named in honor of former Chief of Naval Operations, Elmo R. “Bud” Zumwalt Jr. General Dynamics Bath Iron Works (BIW) is responsible for design, construction, integration, testing and delivery of the DDG 1000 class, and DDG 1002 steel deckhouse, hangar and aft Peripheral Vertical Launch System (PVLS). Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) fabricated the composite deckhouse, helicopter hangar and PVLS for DDG 1000 and DDG 1001. Construction on USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000) commenced in February 2009; the ship was commissioned on October 15, 2016. In its homeport of San Diego, the ship is undergoing its Combat Systems Activation (CSA) period and Initial Operational Test and Evaluation (IOT&E), as part of the process toward achieving Initial Operational Capability (IOC). DDG 1001 was named Michael Monsoor in October 2008 by then-Secretary of the Navy Donald Winter,
honoring Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael Monsoor, a Navy SEAL who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions in Ramadi, Iraq on Sept. 29, 2006. The Navy accepted hull, mechanical, and electrical (HM&E) delivery for DDG 1001 on April 26, 2018.
DDG 1001 is commissioned in San Diego, California Jan. 26, 2019. Following commissioning, Michael Monsoor began combat systems activation, testing and trials.
In April 2012, then-Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus named DDG 1002 in honor of our nation’s 36th president, Lyndon B. Johnson. The future USS Lyndon B. Johnson (DDG 1002) was launched on Dec. 9, 2018 at General Dynamics-Bath Iron Works shipyard in Bath, Maine, and is scheduled to be christened in the spring of 2019.