Report: Lockheed Explores Propulsion Tech Options for Navy Guided-Missile Frigate Program

Lockheed Martin looks to develop a new propulsion system that is different from the one used in littoral combat ships for the company’s guided-missile frigate offering to the U.S. Navy, Defense News reported Tuesday.

The report said Lockheed is examining combined diesel and gas or combined diesel and diesel engine designs in a bid to address the service’s FFG(X) speed requirements.

“We felt the more traditional approach to the suite, going with more of the … port and starboard side, redundant type of propulsion trains, that familiarity would be well received by the Navy,” Joe DePietro, vice president of small combatants and ship systems at Lockheed, told reporters during the 2018 Euronaval event.

The company builds the Freedom variant of LCS with a water-jet propulsion technology.

The Navy awarded FFG(X) concept development contracts in February to Lockheed, General Dynamics’ Bath Iron Works subsidiary, Huntington Ingalls Industries, Austal‘s U.S. arm and Fincantieri Marinette Marine.