Draper Lab continues program to enhance accuracy of submarine-launched nuclear missiles

WASHINGTON, 23 March 2016. U.S. Navy strategic weapons experts continue to make U.S. submarine-launched atomic missiles even more accurate and deadly with a program to fine-tune the accuracy of the Navy's Trident II D5 nuclear missiles aboard Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines.

Officials of the Navy Strategic Systems Program office in Washington announced a potential $163.6 million contract Monday to the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory Inc. in Cambridge, Mass., to build, test verify, and recertify Trident missile inertial measurement units, electronic assemblies, and electronic modules.

The Trident II is the primary weapon aboard Navy Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines. The missile has a range of more than 7,000 miles and carries four independently targeted 475-kiloton nuclear warheads.

The Trident missile's MK 6 guidance system consists of an electronics assembly with the system's flight computers, and an IMU with the system's inertial sensors. The electronics assembly interfaces with the submarine's fire-control system and the missile's flight-control electronics assembly. The IMU, meanwhile, senses the motion of missile and provides navigation information to the mission computer.

Related: Lockheed Martin to build Trident submarine-launched ballistic missiles in potential $828.4 million deal

Trident missiles are aboard 14 Navy Ohio-class submarines and four British Royal Navy Vanguard-class submarines. Each Ohio-class submarine can carry as many as 24 Trident atomic missiles. These vessels together carry about half of all U.S. strategic thermonuclear warheads.

The Draper Lab contract is part of a Navy effort begun in 2002 to extend the life of the D5 missiles to the year 2040 by replacing obsolete components with commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware. Upgrades involved the missile reentry systems and guidance systems.

The first flight test of a D5 extended-life subsystem, the MK 6 Mod 1 guidance system, was in early 2012 aboard the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine USS Tennessee (SSBN 734).

The Trident nuclear missile has a maximum speed of 13,000 miles per hour, and has precision guidance from inertial sensors with star sighting. No GPS-guided Trident D5 missiles have been deployed.

Related: Lockheed Martin to move Trident nuclear missile design to next-generation ballistic missile submarine

The Trident II missile warhead discharges the energy of 475,000 tons of TNT, and is roughly 30 times the size of the U.S. nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945.

On this contract Draper Lab will do the work in Minneapolis; Clearwater, Fla.; Cambridge and Pittsfield, Mass., and should be finished by January 2020.

For more information contact Draper Lab online at www.draper.com, or the Navy Strategic Systems Programs Office at www.ssp.navy.mil.