Rolls-Royce delivered the Axial Mk1 waterjet for the latest Freedom-variant of the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) class, currently under construction for the U.S. Navy. This delivery marks the successful completion of the Office of Naval Research’s (ONR) Future Naval Capabilities (FNC) program for “Compact, High Power Density Waterjets”. This new waterjet will now be standard equipment for all future Freedom variants of the Littoral Combat Ships supplied to the U.S. Navy by Lockheed Martin.
Don Roussinos, Rolls-Royce, President - Naval Marine said, “It is exciting to see this product transition from research to production and delivery. We have been working closely with ONR since 2007 on this project, to ensure that the technology hurdles were overcome.”
The delivery of these waterjets is the culmination of a colaboration between industry, ONR, the Naval Surface Warfare Center – Carderock Division, and the LCS Program Office. The new waterjets are produced in the United States, with primary manufacturing activity at Rolls-Royce facilities in Walpole, Massachusetts and Pascagoula, Mississippi.
The underlying design of the Rolls-Royce Axial Mk1 waterjet has also been scaled for other research and development activity within the U.S. Navy. Last year the power dense waterjet was retrofitted on Sealion, the Special Operations test craft, for performance demonstration tests. Most recently, Rolls-Royce has provided the Navy’s unmanned technology community with a 100mm diameter scaled design for the X-Class USV program MUSCL.
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