Admiral Padgett, thank you, and thank you to the to the Navy Submarine League for the opportunity to speak today.
Strategic Systems Programs and Naval Reactors are truly the only two Navy organizations that own what I consider to be cradle-to-grave responsibility for their programs. As we enter the next phase in preparation for the Ohio replacement program, this philosophy of cradle-to-grave responsibility within one entity is proving to be very valuable. In that context, I make all decisions based on what we are doing on the current platform – Ohio, and then transitioning that as the baseline for Ohio Replacement. That, in context with the authorities I have as the director SSP, where I am the only direct reporting program manager to ASN (RD&A) Mr. Stackley, as well as operationally reporting to the CNO as the echelon two commander responsible for all the deployed forces. I also have a new responsibility that I was recently assigned, and that is the Navy’s Nuclear Deterrent Mission Regulator.
That is a vision that was started out of the investigations by Admiral Donald of the Navy and the Air Force situation back in the 2007-2008 timeframe. It has been a key point of Admiral Greenert, and now Admiral Richardson, to get SSP to this position of the Navy’s Nuclear Deterrent Mission Regulator. There is now one SECNAV and two OPNAV instructions that give me this authority. The last OPNAV instruction, 8120.2, was signed by Admiral Greenert the day before he left office and transferred responsibility to Admiral Richardson. Admiral Greenert kept this on his radar screen, right up to the end. It assigns me as the Navy’s Nuclear Deterrent Mission regulatory
lead with three major responsibilities, those being to obtain inputs from all other applicable echelon one and two commanders.
With this new responsibility, I report quarterly to the CNO. I started this drum beat with the CNO to identify not only areas that we should be working on, but to also work with the echelon two command that are responsible to come up with solutions. To date, we’re working primarily in two areas. The first one is the status and the correction of the TRIPER program as we find it today from that which was initially envisioned. The second is the status and corrections of the Navy’s NC3 (Nuclear Command, Control and Communications) efforts to ensure that there is a viable path going forward as we build the next platform. We are also to conducting end-to-end assessments. Up to this point, we have been looking every other year at the Navy’s nuclear weapons assessment process. I now take responsibility as the executive secretary to execute that, in addition to the comprehensive self-assessments that we do within SSP every other year. We are consolidating this information for use by Navy leadership.
So who is and how are they affected? Most all the echelon twos are in some way, shape or fashion responsible to support the Navy’s Nuclear Deterrent mission. The submarine is the hub of the wheel because all efforts lead to the ability of an operational submarine to transition to the CTF and to go on alert. There are many moving pieces. What concerned the CNO most was that all those pieces were looked at as an entity and that they were delivered to the operational assets to ensure mission success.
As you can see, this include regulating myself. As the Director of SSP I play a huge role in ensuring the boat can go alert and deliver the mission as required. This process is what we are building now. I believe we have made great strides in the past year, but I don’t grade my homework – the CNO does. I will tell you though, I believe they are pleased in the Pentagon with the progress we are making. The real customer, Admiral Connor and now Admiral Tofalo, has a huge input into this and I believe they see the benefits of what we’re doing.
About two years ago we had a discussion with the former Commander of STRATCOM General Kehler. We discussed that we cannot lose the big perspective that there are three major players that must stay in sync as we move forward to deliver the Ohio Replacement Program, those being Naval Reactors, PEO Submarines, and Strategic Systems Programs. If we are going to deliver a capable asset to go on patrol, everyone’s effort must stay in sync in order to deliver that platform to the end. What we are really talking about is budgets. As a result of that discussion with General Kehler, our budgets within that circle, or as we call it ‘the bubble’, were all identified as essential to deliver the Ohio Replacement Program.
Admiral Greenert was adamant that he had the final vote on those budget lines. Admiral Richardson is equally committed to do the same. This allows us to move forward as a single entity rather than three separate commands trying to fight for our place in the budget debates. This morning, I will discuss the status of the strategic weapons system. First though, I want to comment on the common missile compartment with the United Kingdom. Last week, I joined with staffers from the Senate Armed Services committee, as well as members from the House Armed Services committee – seven in all – in the United Kingdom reviewing their program as they move forward with Successor, a very successful program. The Common Missile Compartment Program is being executed under the Polaris Sales Agreement with the United Kingdom. We have very positive information from the United Kingdom as they move very quickly towards their main gate next spring, and I think somewhere prior to that you’ll see a parliamentary vote that commits to building four UK successor platforms very shortly. Last week was a very positive interchange between the U.S. and the UK.
When it comes to the TRIDENT SWS, most people just think of the missile, and certainly we’re focused on the missile. However, my commitment to Dave Johnson and PEO submarines is that every one of those functional subsystems will be lifeextended prior to 2020 and will form the baseline Dave will incorporate in the Ohio Replacement. Today, every one of those functional subsystems has either completed or has ongoing life extension efforts. That is a huge integration challenge we have within SSP. I will spend a lot of time talking about that. Facilities, specifically those at SWFLANT and SWFPAC, were plussed up in the budget $325 million for sustainment and recapitalization efforts. Leadership understood that there is no sense in building a new boat that will be in the water through 2080 if you do not have adequate strategic weapons facilities to service that platform, so, a huge investment by national leadership to ensure that SWFs will be viable through that timeframe. We’ll walk through all the efforts that are ongoing, the commitments that we have made and our execution to them. There are many ongoing efforts and commitments to execute this. I will start with Nuclear Weapons Security. We have a more robust and viable Nuclear Weapons Security posture at the two SWFs today than we have ever had. I count the support of the United States Coast Guard and the United States Marine Corps for that effort. We remain on schedule with treaty support. We have conducted two of the New START Treaty conversions on the Ohio platform. During the first conversion, the Russians actually came over and conducted their inspection at Kings Bay. That went well without any issues. Last week, we conducted the second conversion under the New START Treaty with no issues there either.
I will now spend some time discussing where we are in the flight systems, which are in yellow, and then I will transition to a very complex scenario that we have ongoing in shipboard systems. To date in Mark 4 warhead refurbishment we have accepted more than 60 percent of the NNSA’s delivery back to us of the converted W76 Mark 4 reentry body. They are delivering on schedule.
We have completed D5 LE development in terms of flight tests for certification. To date we are 50 percent complete and after DASO 26, which will happen within the next three weeks, we’ll be 80 percent complete with that effort. We are on track to have initial operating capability of the D5 LE suite in 2017 and that will begin with deployment throughout the fleet of our new guidance systems and missile electronics.
When I talk about D5 LE, I am talking about two elements. First, a brand new guidance system, the world’s most advanced stellar inertial guidance system, re-architected from the original Mark 6 with new instruments and sensors. To date we have flown the guidance system three times, all successful. After DASO 26, we will add two more checkmarks and have one flight left to complete certification. On the missile hardware, there are four packages that we are refurbishing. The command sequencer and the inverters are complete in their certification and are ready to go.
The interlocks in the flight control electronics assemblies fly as a suite. We have flown them successfully once. They met all the initial requirements. In DASO 26, we will fly that suite twice, so we will have two more checks and have one more flight remaining for certification for that hardware. As I mentioned, the W76 is a complete life extension refurbishment of the smaller of the two warheads. We are ahead of schedule. Development is complete and production is at 60 percent and is supporting the Navy requirements as we support the Submarine Force.
We are also in the process of doing design and development of a new arming, fusing, and firing circuit on the Mark 5 – the larger of the two reentry bodies. This is a joint program with the U.S. States Air Force. They will be deployed in both the Navy reentry bodies, as well as the Air Force reentry vehicles. There are those that are common in the core, and they have some interface differences because the architecture of the ICBM and the SLBM is slightly different. There are also those that are unique to the missile itself. So a great step forward in this joint program. This is a unique joint program. I do not believe we have ever gone to this level of commonality. I am going to speak more about commonality in the past, but this is preceding the pace for a December 2019 IOC.
There is something that we have been working on for about two plus years with Navy leadership, NNSA, and the Department of Defense. In order to refurbish this reentry body, it needs to go back to the Pantex nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly facility. I’ve been advocating strongly that while the reentry body is back at Pantex, we take the opportunity to refresh the conventional high explosives (CHE) in the nuclear explosive package. I was able to win that debate and the nuclear weapons council this year approved the CHE refresh. This is critically important, as it will make this weapon viable through the early 2040s. With the W88 Alt 370 effort and the W76 life extension the Navy has two viable weapons off the radar screen until the 2040’s. That gives the DoE complex the flexibility and the agility to refurbish itself and get back on its feet and geared towards the next set of efforts that it will have to accomplish.
This will take the pressure off the complex and gives us two viable weapons out through the 2040s, which is critical since we now, within the Submarine Force, are 70 percent of this nation’s strategic nuclear deterrent. This is a huge win for the Submarine Force.
We also have certified the alternate release assembly. This is an effort that we’ve been working for some time now. This is important because it allows me, at the Strategic Weapons Facilities to change the warhead on the missile in the tube without having to remove the missile and pull it back into the processing facilities.
Based now on STRATCOM’s requirements, I can convert a missile from a Mark 5 reentry body missile to a Mark 4 Alpha reentry body missile in the tube, and I can ensure that I minimize the operational readiness impact to the fleet, as well as minimize the amount of processing that I have to do back in the SWF facility. This too is a huge gain for the fleet and huge gain for the SWFs. This is now certified and deployed in the Fleet.
That’s a quick run through for flight hardware. As you can see, there are a lot of moving pieces, but we remain on-track to the commitments. This becomes very complicated in shipboard systems. The reason it became very complicated is a discussion and a commitment to Admiral Conner to minimize AO impacts to the fleet. We had to segment the shipboard systems work to fit within refit periods, and we have taken very complex adjustments in shipboard systems and cut them up into incremental pieces. As you see, there are, again, many moving pieces. We call this our Shipboard System Integration or SSI and we number it by increments. Increment one is now complete. Increment one was a re-architecture of launcher and fire control, as well instrumentation to a total COTS base, COTS hardware, software. That is complete on all US boats, all UK boats, as well as all US and UK training facilities ashore. this was a huge effort by our industrial-government team, and we are not moving along smartly with increment two. We have completed the first install and will proceed to pace throughout this year. Increment four is our change to instrumentation and to navigation. We anticipate a major change with the replacement of our electrostatic gyro navigators with IFOG technology. We must get the base correct, so that when we move towards that replacement, we have the right infrastructure in navigation and instrumentation.
Increment eight is the actual ESGN replacement. That IFOG design development is proceeding on schedule. In fact, we will go to sea as a monitor in the third binnacle spot. In fiscal 2017 we will monitor the new IFOGs alongside the ESGNs to gain confidence, just like we did with the ESGN before we installed the ESGNs. Increment 11 is moving the gas generator in the launcher subsystem and convert it to laser initiation. The design and development is complete. Why is that important? This allows us to break the circuit with laser safely and allows us to perform maintenance on that tube. This is something we have never been able to do before without offloading a missile. This is another AO improvement for the Fleet and the way that we have designed this, we will do the entire 24 tubes on the first boat. After that, we will do it tube-by-tube whenever we have the opportunity with an empty tube.
Finally, we have increment 13 which is also instrumentation in Navigation. When we complete that work, it becomes the baseline for Ohio Replacement. By 2020, SSP will have the baseline that I will turn over to Dave Johnson (PEO Subs) as architecture, and the Ohio and the Ohio Replacement, will be in the same configuration as we move forward. Again, many moving pieces here yet to go in shipboard systems. I cannot say enough about the government contractor team that is executing this and ensuring that we do this safely and we keep the two configurations synced up.
Regarding the common missile compartment, we find ourselves in the situation where the United Kingdom is actually ahead of us. I think everyone’s aware of that when we slipped the Ohio Replacement two years. The United Kingdom will actually fire first in today’s program of record. In order to mitigate that risk we developed what is called SWS Ashore, Strategic Weapons Systems Ashore. It is a facility where we will conduct initial proofing of the shipyard integrated test procedures and shipboard procedures, to ensure we mitigate the risk and minimize the amount of time that we are addressing these issue. We’ll transfer this information to the United Kingdom and we’ll support their shipyard integrated test procedures. That information will be transferred back and used as we go through the Ohio Replacement and construction efforts in our shipyards. You can see how this builds on one other and it starts with the Strategic Weapons System Ashore.
I want to talk to you about something that I’ve never done before. As Director of SSP, I’d like to say I’m a rocket scientist. Nowadays though, I worry a lot about concrete and rebar, and I’ll show you why.
SWS Ashore is a government owned, government operated tactically representative facility – something we have never had in the program before. I think this is a real turning point in the way we think about this program as we move forward. This facility is being constructed down at the Cape in Florida at the Naval Ordnance Test Unit and believe this going to be a real game changer.
I want to commend Dave Johnson. I came to Dave a couple years ago and said, “We have to do this in order to get the UK Successor and ORP built, but let’s look beyond that, and let’s create a facility that, once those platforms are deployed, we can use for the remaining life of that platform.” With Dave’s concurrence, we set off on SWS Ashore, and we used all and every means available to get this in on budget and delivered as quickly as possible. This slide shows WSELBEF up at Electric Boat. We took the WSELBEF and cut it in half, as we needed those two Ohio missile tubes. After we cut it in half, we put it on a barge and floated it down to the Cape. We then took it to,
Complex 25, which we used in 1960 for a Polaris launcher. We took that infrastructure that still remained in the ground and with a $5 million input and investment from the state of Florida that allowed the Navy to not have to use MILCON, we jump started the construction process. We cleaned it up and built the building on top of the existing infrastructure. Earlier this year (2015), we took the two tubes and placed them in that infrastructure. The superstructure has the two tubes landed in the vertical. That’s one-half of the building and will represent the Ohio class platform. The other half of the building with one of the new Ohio Replacement tubes, will represent the Ohio Replacement platform. We’ll have one platform with the common shipboard systems, launcher, fire control, and navigation in the middle, which will be able to support both the existing Ohio through 2042, and then the Ohio Replacement through the life of that platform.
When the structural and architectural elements are done and when we get delivery of the first Ohio Replacement tube, we will place that on the right-hand side. Today we have 17 Ohio Replacement tubes under contract. Twelve of those will go to the first UK Successor platform. Four will be used by Electric Boat to conduct first article proofing of the quad pack, and the last remaining tube will go to the SWS Ashore and be landed in this facility for us to do proofing of shipyard integrated test procedures. (The following is the audio narration from a SWS Ashore video) “Major site construction, installation, and outfitting at Complex 25 will be done in an orderly fashion over seven years following green building guidelines throughout. Site preparations were completed in 2013, allowing construction to begin. Facility infrastructure preparations will conclude by the end of 2014. In 2015, Test Bay One will receive the TRIDENT Two missile tubes, a superstructure, and strategic weapons support system components. Ships support services such as the chilled water system, and the high pressure air and hydraulic systems located in the hull, mechanical, and electrical building will complete interface testing during early 2016. This will be followed by remaining work on Test Bay One, which will include the loading of an active, inert missile, operational checking of support system components, and systems level testing. The objective is to achieve initial operating capability for the Ohio / Vanguard SWS in June 2016, and subsequently support certification of a new missile service unit.
By the end of 2017, preparations for Test Bay Two to receive the Ohio Replacement missile tube will conclude, and the structure for the missile control center module will be installed in the control room. During 2018, the Ohio Replacement and UK Successor missile tube, with the lower environmental tank, will be installed in Test Bay Two, along with SWS and support system equipment. In 2019 the upper environmental tank will be installed. The environmental tanks simulate water temperatures throughout the submarine’s operating range, and pressures throughout the launch depth band to validate the shipboard environmental conditioning system design. The Common Missile Compartment Missile Control Center Module will be finished. The support system components delivered, and the fire control system tested. By the end of 2019 the major portions of the SWS Ashore installation and outfitting will draw to a close. Additionally, intube conversion training will commence in Test Bay One.
In 2020 rigorous missile tube hatch testing will be conducted in Test Bay Two followed by loading a special test vehicle. During 2021, fire control system interface testing with the special test vehicle, and support system verification and validation testing will conclude. The shipyard installation test program will complete with a dockside op sequence test to proof the procedure through a simulated missile away event by the last quarter of 2022. All test procedure proofing will be completed, and a subsequent dockside op sequence test will validate that SWS Ashore is ready to provide lifecycle support by the end of 2023. Lifecycle operations at the SWS Ashore test facility will consist of fleet support, SPALT proofing, special weapons tests, and future system design development testing.”
This shows you how all those pieces come together to minimize risk and to accelerate our confidence and our efforts to ensure that the UK shipyard, as well as U.S. shipyards are moving forward. I also want to just call attention to the support infrastructure being designed and developed, produced and delivered by Electric Boat.
The partnership that SSP has with Electric Boat is further strengthened as we look at this whole concept in the middle, and Ohio Replacement support on either side of it. I have another major construction project ongoing at China Lake, California. We did a cost analysis and technical analysis of how we were going to certify the launcher capability. That entire industrial infrastructure has been dormant for years. Of course, it is absolutely critical to the safety of the platform, as well as the success of the strategic weapons system. Rather than reconstitute Hunters Point, where we did underwater launches, we found it more economical and actually more efficient to build a land-based capability. In the center you have the large vertical structure. That actually comes apart. The top of it is an environmental structure. As we prepare for the test and conduct our instrumentation, we will do it in a temperature and humidity controlled environment.
That structure actually comes off and in there is a missile launch tube, which will eject, not a missile, but a shape. We went back to the old programs and we refurbished the existing concrete shapes we had. They’re weighted, balanced, and are the same dimensions as a TRIDENT missile. We will conduct 47 tests at this facility to ensure all the materials, manufacturing, glues, the adhesives – everything that is absolutely critical to get that missile out of that tube in a quarter of a second and to a designated height above the waves – are ready to enter manufacturing and proceed to pace in order to support construction. The way we do this is with a mechanism called the crossflow winch. That is how we will put the crossflow vector on the missile. There will be a winch that will be attached to the tip of the missile so that we can operate in all the dynamics that we’re required to in order to launch from an Ohio Replacement submarine. What happens next is we launch the shape up and it simply falls back down into the arrestment system, that’s a fancy word for a big pit. You would think that would be simple, but it is anything but that. I now know more about gravel, size, shape, density, than I ever wanted to know, because that’s what that pit is going to be filled with, gravel. Next, we’ll pick the shape up, refurbish it, and go through the 47 tests with the two cement shapes. The pit has been completed, which was quite an endeavor. Of course, the whole reason we’re doing this is for data, so we have an extensive data array capture system and that comes with a lot of cabling. We’ve put a series of cameras around the facility in China Lake, and they take snapshots about every 15 minutes. You can see, that construction project is one that I get weekly reports on, and it’s fascinating to see just how quickly a large project like that can proceed. This construction project runs about one year. In 2017, at the end of this fiscal year, we will commence testing of those launcher shapes out of that facility. This is a huge risk reduction tool and again, right on schedule, on budget, and on track to support Dave Johnson and the Ohio Replacement program.
I want to discuss an initiative that I’ve been pressing for the five years since I’ve been the Director. This is commonality with the United States Air Force. I drew a concept graphic five and a half years ago with a pencil. Many people laughed at my graphic skills, but I will tell you that this concept is one that is now beginning to take legs within the Pentagon. I will explain what the graphic depicted. On the left-hand side of that graphic, at the bottom left-hand corner, is continuing life extensions. If we’re not careful, that’s where we’re going to find the triad in the future – just continuing life extensions. It is easy in the sense that you can cut the triad up into small pieces and you can go after it crisis by crisis – but that is very costly. It prevents you from interjecting any new innovation and any lifecycle support reductions. When you just do life extensions, you’re going to the same form, fit, and function just as we did in the TRIDENT II D5 LE. This prevents you from going to that next step of technology and innovation. If you come up that spectrum, there are service unique SLBMs or ICBMs. That’s the way we’ve operated forever – C4, D5, Minuteman III, GBSD – each service does their thing, because that’s the way they have always done it. You can see the inertia of the system is, “let’s do it the way we’ve always done it. Let’s be in charge of what we are accountable for.” However, I think we need to apply effort and get across that apex, and have the evolution of looking at commonality between the two ballistic missiles in the triad. We have proven we can do that as I explained with the joint fuse. The question is, to what extent should we do that? As you continue all the way across, you could get yourself to the far righthand corner, which is what I call the revolution – a common ballistic program. As the budgets shrink and as costs increase, if we’re not careful, we could find ourselves there by default. Somewhere on that spectrum is the right answer. Commonality is not in an effort simply to reduce cost. If we’re going to go after commonality between the ICBMs and the SLBMs, then it needs to be an effort of intelligent commonality and it needs to be done from a technical perspective, not simply a cost perspective. It runs the whole spectrum. It runs from resource commonality such as where we get the propellants to be more closely aligned. We’re 1.1 nitroglycerin-based while the Air Force is 1.3 ammonium perchlorate-based. Can we find something in the middle that would allow us to safely operate from a submarine and meet our mission in a constrained volume that would also meet the Air Force requirements? That’s an example of the effort that’s ongoing. You can go to manufacturing commonality, component commonality, subassemblies, and at the far right-hand side, deterrent commonality.
I have been pressing this pretty hard for the last five and a half years. I believe we made a major breakthrough this summer when I asked Mr. Stackley, the Navy’s RDA, Mr. Plant, the Air Force’s RDA, and Admiral Haney, to cosign a letter directing myself and Major General Scott, who’s the PEO for ICBMs, to conduct a commonality study. We will report back to the three of them, as well as Mr. Kendall, by the end of the year. That effort has been ongoing since this summer. I believe we are making progress. What we have found, quite frankly, is you’ve need to look at commonality across that entire spectrum. You cannot blindly go in and say that any one thing should be common just because it can be. You need to look at it in terms of risk. Risk as in, if we do go common, we now have the potential to affect two legs of the triad.
We must address how we do that. I will tell you, we have just invested a significant amount of time and money in doing the LE projects that I have talked about. The Navy has a significant, amount of material and subsystems that are TRL level nine certified. When you examine things like our shipboard systems, and the weapons control system in the Air Force. When you think about things like our guidance system and the Air Force’s need for a guidance system. When you think about the common components that could be used in our motor manufacturing, there are opportunities across that spectrum to reduce the cost of maintaining the triad in the form which I believe it should be, three legs, a viable ICBM force, a viable SLBM force, and a viable bomber force. That effort is ongoing. We are on track to report, by the end of the year, to Mr. Kendall.
Let me just remind you of where we are at and why this is so important. Today, TRIDENT, which is the top line, we are good for the near and midterm. However, we will be able to carry TRIDENT II D5 assets through 2084. There will be something after TRIDENT. Will it be LE2, which is the left-hand of my spectrum? Will it be E6? Those are all decisions that we are doing the analysis on and the technical evaluation to determine what the proposal will be to national leadership. On the bottom, you can see the W76 and the W88. At some point we will have to do something with those two reentry bodies. That is a potential ongoing effort with NNSA for the interoperable warhead and we are playing in that effort as well.
What you will see here is, if you line up the ICBMs and the Minuteman III, you can see how closely aligned we are, which leads me to my conclusion that, if we are that closely aligned, then why can’t we share commonality across that spectrum, and pick the right points in which to do this? Today the GBSD is heading towards a milestone, a decision in the first quarter of the next calendar year. I’m trying to influence that to say there’s been a huge investment in the United State Navy. What we have done is not directly applicable, however it is a viable starting point and a reduced NRE bill for the United States Air Force moving forward.
You can see on the bottom, they’ll face the same issues with reentry bodies as we do, which is why I made such a push on the W76 and specifically on the W88 with the conventional high explosives to get us off that radar screen and reduce some of the pressure on NNSA and the nuclear weapons complex. I believe I am accountable to drive this, since we are under the New START Treaty, 70 percent of this nation’s strategic deterrents, and more importantly, as we just reported out to the staffers and to the congressional delegation last week, we are 100 percent of the United Kingdom’s strategic nuclear deterrents. We carry a heavy burden of accountability to support both national directives.
During the first week of November 2015 we will conduct DASO 26. I have four major objectives for this operation. First, certify the submarine and the crew so that we can return her to the operational lineup and Admiral Haney’s tasking. Second, as I pointed out, to launch two missiles on this DASO. They will be the first flight where we fly the new guidance system with all of the new missile electronics. We’ve flown them in various pieces and configurations up to date. This is the first time we will put that all together. Those two missiles will allow me to check two of those boxes. We move forward on the developmental JTA with NNSA. We will also fly the arming and fusing part of the Mark 5 Alt 370, the common fuse with the Air Force.
And then, finally, this is our third flight of a multi star experiment. When we built the new guidance system, we went to digital gyros, which allow me to slew and settle much faster than the old analogs, which allow me now, within the timelines I’m allotted, to shoot two stars. This gives me what I call technical management reserve as we move forward with the potential to get greater accuracy out of the system in the future. What it really does, and this is a hypothesis, but if we move forward, I believe that there’s potential trade space to eliminate out of the strategic weapons system, the need for a strat navigator. And if we make improvements in the existing tactical navigator architecture, then there’s the potential – and I’m going to underline potential, to move to a common navigator for shipped submarines and strategic, with the potential to use a multi star to complement. That’s all work in progress. That’s a hypothesis, and we’re going to go forward and see if can validate that. If we could, that’s a huge win for the United States Navy.
