IN Brief:
- The US Navy awarded Lockheed Martin $24.77 million for lightweight low-cost conformal arrays.
- Production is divided between Syracuse, La Mesa, and Clearwater and will run through May 2029.
- The passive submarine array supports situational awareness and collision avoidance through integration with the AN/BQQ-10 sonar architecture.
Lockheed Martin has received a $24.77 million US Navy contract for production of lightweight low-cost conformal arrays, extending manufacture of submarine acoustic sensor hardware through May 2029.
The fixed-price incentive, undefinitized contract action allocates 70% of the work to Syracuse, New York, 20% to La Mesa, Mexico, and 10% to Clearwater, Florida. US Navy procurement, shipbuilding, and research and development funding was obligated at award.
The contract was placed without competition under the provision allowing procurement from the only responsible source considered capable of meeting the requirement. That procurement route reflects the specialised production knowledge, configuration control, and system integration associated with an established submarine sonar component.
Lockheed Martin has previously described the Low Cost Conformal Array as a passive planar acoustic array mounted on the aft section of a submarine’s sail and integrated with the AN/BQQ-10 Acoustic Rapid Commercial-Off-The-Shelf Insertion sonar system. Its functions include improving situational awareness and collision avoidance, particularly where submarines are operating among dense surface traffic.
A passive array listens for acoustic energy rather than transmitting an active sonar pulse. Its performance depends on the sensitivity and consistency of the sensor elements, mechanical installation, acoustic isolation, electrical integrity, calibration, and the processing chain used to turn raw signals into information an operator can interpret.
Packaging those functions onto a submarine creates a demanding manufacturing environment. Equipment fitted externally or around the sail must tolerate pressure, hydrodynamic loading, shock, vibration, corrosion, and extended immersion without introducing unacceptable noise or compromising the platform’s acoustic characteristics.
Small manufacturing variations can therefore carry disproportionate consequences. Changes in material properties, bonding, assembly geometry, electronics, sealing, or calibration can alter acoustic performance, making production test and traceability central to maintaining a repeatable fleet configuration.
The three-site workshare in the new contract adds another layer of control. Parts and assemblies produced across Syracuse, La Mesa, and Clearwater have to arrive at the correct configuration, with compatible documentation and quality records, before the complete system can be accepted for submarine installation.
Distributed production can provide access to specialised facilities and labour while reducing dependence on a single location. It also makes engineering change management more important because revised drawings, approved parts, inspection criteria, test software, and process instructions have to remain synchronised across each participating site.
The equipment also sits inside a sonar architecture designed to evolve through successive computing upgrades. The Acoustic Rapid COTS Insertion approach was created to allow the Navy to refresh processing technology more regularly than older bespoke military electronics permitted, reducing the risk that submarines remain tied to computing hardware long after commercial technology has moved on.
Sensor production has to remain compatible with those processing changes. A new computing baseline may improve signal processing and operator displays, but the physical array still has to present data through controlled electrical and software interfaces, creating a long-lived integration relationship between sensor hardware and the inboard sonar system.
Commercial electronics cycles create another problem. Components used in a military system can disappear from manufacture years before the submarine itself leaves service, forcing engineering teams to qualify replacements while preserving electrical performance, software behaviour, environmental tolerance, and system certification.
A contract running to 2029 therefore carries an obsolescence-management workload alongside physical production. Suppliers need enough visibility to secure long-lead components, identify parts approaching end of life, and complete redesign or qualification work before shortages disrupt the manufacturing line.
The mix of procurement, shipbuilding, and research and development funding in the award also connects current production with continuing technical work. Procurement funding supports fielded equipment, shipbuilding money can support installation associated with submarine construction and modernisation, and research funding provides a route for engineering activity around the product baseline.
That combination is typical of mature naval electronics, where production and development continue in parallel. A sensor does not remain technically static simply because it has entered fleet service; software, processing, materials, components, and interfaces keep changing around it.
The contract is modest compared with the value of a complete submarine, but acoustic systems sit directly inside the platform’s ability to navigate, detect contacts, maintain situational awareness, and operate safely without giving away its own position. Their contribution cannot be deferred until after hull construction because cabling, interfaces, mounting arrangements, processing equipment, and integration tests are embedded throughout the submarine build and modernisation process.
Lockheed Martin’s latest award extends that production infrastructure for another three years. The industrial task is to keep a mature conformal-array design manufacturable, supportable, and compatible with an evolving sonar architecture while the Navy continues building and modernising submarines around it.
