A Request for Information (RFI) issued by the Naval Sea System Command (NAVSEA) on the 5th of this month, states that “the Government is evaluating procurement strategies, including winner-take-all, “Leader-Challenger”, and/or GFE breakouts of LRUs or subsystems as a separate contract(s).”
The service is conducting this market research ahead of competitively awarded full-rate production contract(s) that the service plans to issue in FY26.
According to the RFI, the Navy will provide a Technical Data Package (TDP) containing the instructions to build the SPY-6 hardware as Government Furnished Information (GFI). The RFI also states that software development, software and system integration and test, and software maintenance are not covered under this RFI and will be competed separately.
According to the announcement, the US Navy expects to buy 30 SPY-6 shipsets between FY26 and FY30. Furthermore, the RFI states that the Navy is looking to capture potential Foreign Military Sales (FMS) in this contract.
As such, there is potential for extra unit options to be awarded. These options will comprise up to 3 additional (V)1 units per year (not likely to exceed 9 added units total), up to 3 (V)4 units per year (not likely to exceed 6 added units total) and up to 2 (V)3 units per year (not likely to exceed 5 added units total).
If exercised, this would bring the number of potential SPY-6 orders between FY26 to FY30 to 72 shipsets, and not-to-exceed quantity of 81 shipsets.
The SPY-6 Radar:
The SPY-6 family is set to be the most numerous radar across the fleet in the coming years. The family is separated into four different variants, each being composed of a certain number of Radar Module Assemblies (RMAs).
The SPY-6(V)1 is the biggest variant of the family and is currently fielded on the Navy’s Flight III Arleigh-Burke class DDGs. The V(1) is composed of 37 RMAs per array face, giving a Flight III destroyer 148 RMAs in total.
The SPY-6(V)2 is the smallest version of the family and is currently set to be fielded on Navy’s Amphibious ships such as the San Antonio class LPDs, Wasp class LHDs, America class LHAs, and Nimitz class CVNs. The V(2) array is composed of nine RMAs, with each ship being equipped with either a single fixed radar for the CVN ships or a single rotating radar for the LPDs, LHDs, and LHAs.
The SPY-6(V)3 is similar to the V(2) version, with each array being composed of nine RMAs. However, ships equipped with the V(3) will feature three array faces instead of a single face. The V(3) will be fielded on the Navy’s Gerald R. Ford class CVNs and Constellation class FFGs.
The SPY-6(V)4 is a variant meant to be back-fitted to the Navy’s Flight IIA Arleigh-Burke class DDGs. The V(2) is composed of 24 RMAs per array for a total of 96 RMAs per ship. The Navy has currently sidelined 24 Flight IIAs to get the backfit as part of the Aegis Modernization (AMOD) 2.0 effort.
Check out Naval News interview with Raytheon on SPY-6(V)4 at SNA 2024:
