Raytheon electronics on board

(IDS) has been awarded $41.4m to provide the initial planning and acquisition of electronic systems on board LPD 25, the ninth ship in the LPD 17 class.

The LPD 17 class of the US Navy's amphibious ships is designed as an expeditionary warfare support platform and serves as an operations base for elements of US Marine expeditionary forces. This includes troops, helicopters, vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, advanced amphibious assault vehicles, air-cushioned landing craft, and support equipment.

This award by Northrop Grumman, the LPD 25 ship builder, is an option from an existing subcontract that was awarded to Raytheon in June 2006.

Under this option, Raytheon will perform up-front system design, hardware and software development, engineering, and test and evaluation to support total ship electronics systems integration.

Raytheon is also the prime contractor for life-cycle engineering and support of Raytheon-designed and developed equipment for the LPD 17 class of ships. LPD 25 will include Raytheon's Ship Self Defence System Mk 2 open architecture combat management system, which incorporates total ship computing engineering infrastructure developed for DDG 1000.