WASHINGTON – U.S. Navy shipboard electronic warfare (EW) experts are asking L3Harris Technologies Inc. in Clifton, N.J., to build special EW payloads to help protect Navy warships from enemy anti-ship cruise missiles.
Officials of the Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington announced a $41.1 million order on Tuesday for MK 234 Nulka Advanced Decoy Architecture Program (ADAP)-series payloads. L3Harris also won a $31.7 million for Nulka ADAP payloads last year.
The ADAP missile-defense payload provides an advanced EW transmitter and increased signal processing capability to target specific threats that the legacy payload on the shipboard Nulka decoy does not.
ADAP payloads are designed to lure missiles away from their intended targets with advanced electronic techniques. The ADAP payloads are an upgrade to the existing Nulka decoy.
Nulka is a joint program with Australia, and is in service with the Australian, Canadian, and U.S. navies to protect surface warships. Nulka consists of the MK 53 decoy-launching system and MK 234 offboard active decoy to defeat hostile anti-ship missiles.
The MK 53 DLS missile-defense system consists of a decoy launch processor, launching power supplies, and from two to six launchers depending on the ship class. Each launcher can store and launch two Nulka decoys. The MK 53 DLS provides the launch authorization and flight demands to the Nulka decoy when a Nulka engagement is initiated.
The MK 53 DLS has been installed on U.S. Ticonderoga-class cruisers, Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, as well as on Whidbey Island- and Harpers Ferry-class amphibious assault ships.
On this order L3Harris will do the work Clifton, N.J., and should be finished by July 2026. For more information contact L3Harris online at www.l3harris.com/all-capabilities/nulka, or Naval Sea Systems Command at www.navsea.navy.mil.
