PORT HUENEME, Calif. – Among the flurry of fleet activity during the recent Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise in Hawaii was a milestone that the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme Division (NSWC PHD) spearheaded: the first demonstration of a Naval Strike Missile (NSM) of a US Navy destroyer.

Working within a compressed timeline, NSWC PHD and its partners installed the first Over-the-Horizon (OTH) weapon system on a destroyer, USS Fitzgerald (DDG 62), in time to launch an NSM on a decommissioned ship on July 18 . during RIMPAC.

Other key players in the effort included Program Executive Office Integrated Warfare Systems (PEO IWS) 3H, Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division (NAWCWD) China Lake, General Dynamics Mission Systems and Kongsberg Defense & Aerospace AS.

“This was a high visibility requirement for the Navy,” said Eric Romero, client attorney for OTH with NSWC PHD in Port Hueneme, California.

OTH is a long-range surface-to-surface warfare system that launches NSMs, which are anti-ship guided missiles. The Navy has added the system to about a dozen littoral combat ships in the Independence variant over the past five years.

In late September 2023, the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations challenged PEO IWS, which in turn commissioned NSWC PHD, to install an OTH on the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Fitzgerald in time to demonstrate it at RIMPAC 2024. Only about nine remained. months before the biennial international fleet exercise.

“We knew we were working on an aggressive schedule, but we had all the right personnel on the team to ensure we could execute it successfully,” Romero said.

NSWC PHD employees have taken on several projects to deliver the venture at this accelerated pace, from developing ship installation drawings to obtaining cybersecurity approvals to installing and testing the equipment.

The total effort involved nearly two dozen organizations, including five program offices, four war centers and a dozen external entities, said Todd Jenkins, chief of platform integration at NSWC PHD in San Diego.

“We expected many roadblocks due to the compressed timeline, but everyone came together to make this monumental event a reality,” Jenkins said.

Typically, this type of first-class installation takes at least two years, according to Robert “Tony” Honeycutt, Alteration Installation Team manager at NSWC PHD’s Virginia Beach Detachment in Virginia. A key factor in accelerating the process was proposing the OTH as a temporary modification of USS Fitzgerald, which reduced documentation and drawing requirements compared to a permanent modification.

In addition to streamlining paperwork, Honeycutt and Jenkins regularly met with stakeholders from PEO IWS 3H and NAWCWD China Lake to overcome obstacles and stay on schedule.

“Basically we just drove it as hard as we could,” Honeycutt said. “As soon as we encountered a problem, we held a group powwow and came up with the solution.”

Another task the team accelerated was securing cybersecurity accreditation, known as Authority to Operate (ATO), for the OTH software that would be installed on the ship. The rigorous six-step process typically takes about a year, but in this case it needed to be completed much faster so installation could begin.

“We had to do the cyber ATO within two months,” Romero said.

The team installed the OTH on USS Fitzgerald at Naval Base San Diego from mid-March to late May. The main components of the system are the launcher and an operator interface console. To make it compatible with the destroyer, the system also required a navigation adapter.

After installing the OTH, NSWC PHD trained crew members and helped them test the system en route.

“We made sure they received training so they could be self-sufficient as operators,” Romero said.

In July, USS Fitzgerald participated with other ships and aircraft in Hawaii off RIMPAC in a sinking exercise known as a SINKEX. The target was a decommissioned amphibious ship about 50 nautical miles off the coast of Kauai.

With NSWC PHD team members monitoring remotely, USS Fitzgerald launched its first NSM from the OTH. The NSM successfully searched the target area, located and prosecuted the target.

“It was a successful NSM live fire shot launched from the OTH weapon system,” Romero said.

Following the inaugural firing on RIMPAC, NSWC PHD personnel will help prepare the USS Fitzgerald for deployment to the OTH.

While the new weapon system is still approved as a temporary installation on the USS Fitzgerald, the team is working toward approval to allow it to remain on the ship indefinitely.

“We are migrating the ship change document to a permanent change because we want to maintain the system on board the DDG 62,” said Romero.

The work done under DDG 62 will help determine the path forward in bringing this capability to other DDGs.