ATLANTIC OCEAN — The Legend-class national security cutter USCGC Hamilton (WMSL 753) with the Sentinel-class fast response cutters USCGC Charles Moulthrope (WPC 1141) and USCGC Robert Goldman (WPC 1142) departed Puerto Rico on April 1 to transit the North Atlantic to Europe, Coast Guard Atlantic Area announced April 2.

“U.S. Coast Guard cutters have a long history of protecting America’s interests at home and abroad. This historic deployment demonstrates how we can strengthen our national security by extending the Coast Guard’s global reach and firming our commitments to allies and partners in the region,” Capt. Timothy Cronin, commanding officer, USCGC Hamilton.

Hamilton is escorting the fast response cutters across the Atlantic before conducting a patrol in the U.S. Navy’s 6th Fleet area of responsibility to maintain maritime security alongside NATO allies and partners. The Moulthrope and Goldman crews will continue to their new homeport of Manama, Bahrain, with brief stops for logistics and relationship building. Planning for the escort and deployment began last year to ensure smooth delivery of the fast response cutters, replacing the Island-class ships currently in operation under the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet command.

“Our primary goal for the fast response cutters is to complete the 9,000-mile voyage to homeport safely and efficiently. In addition, we will capitalize on opportunities to strengthen international partnerships promoting security and prosperity throughout some of the world’s busiest maritime trade routes,” Lt. Cmdr. Steven Hulse, commanding officer, USCGC Charles Moulthrope.

“We expect to showcase the capabilities of the fast response cutter, and the U.S. Coast Guard to advance the shared maritime strategy for security with the U.S. Navy and naval partners in the region, while concurrently engaging with them on the more traditional U.S. Coast Guard missions of search and rescue, maritime law enforcement, and illegal fisheries enforcement,” said Lt. Cmdr. Samuel Blase, commanding officer, USCGC Robert Goldman.
  
The U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard operate forward, from the littoral to the open ocean, ensuring stability and open sea lanes across all maritime domains. U.S. Coast Guard operations in U.S. 6th Fleet demonstrate the country’s commitment, flexibility and capability to operate and address security concerns throughout Europe and Africa, the Coast Guard said.

“The U.S. Coast Guard is a member of the joint force, a key and always-ready instrument to further national security objectives globally,” said Vice Adm. Steven Poulin, commander, U.S. Coast Guard Atlantic Area. “It’s been almost two decades since we sent the Island-class patrol boats to Bahrain. As we seek to modernize our asset support to the U.S. Navy in the Arabian Gulf, this is an excellent opportunity to advance partnerships and learn from our allies in the region.”
 
Hamilton is the fourth ship in its class. The Legend-class is the largest current cutter class of the U.S. Coast Guard. These vessels support various missions, including environmental protection, search and rescue, fisheries, port security, counterterrorism, law enforcement, drug interdiction, defense operations and other military operations.

Moulthrope and Goldman are the first two of six Sentinel-class ships headed to U.S. Patrol Forces Southwest Asia. Established in 2002 to support Operation Iraqi Freedom, PATFORSWA played a critical role in maritime security and maritime infrastructure protection operations. It is the U.S. Coast Guard’s largest unit outside of the United States.

PATFORSWA is currently providing U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet and U.S. Central Command with combat-ready assets, using its unique access to foreign territorial seas and ports, formulating strong and independent relationships with patterns throughout the Arabian Gulf, and leveraging the full-spectrum, flexible vessel boarding capabilities and maritime country engagements on the shore.

U.S. 6th Fleet, headquartered in Naples, Italy, conducts the full spectrum of joint and naval operations, often in concert with allied and interagency partners, to advance U.S. national interests and security and stability in Europe and Africa.  

Based in Portsmouth, Virginia, U.S. Coast Guard Atlantic Area oversees all Coast Guard operations east of the Rocky Mountains to the Arabian Gulf. Also, they allocate ships to deploy to the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific to combat transnational organized crime and illicit maritime activity.

The world was transfixed with the images of the NASA Perseverance rover landing on Mars in February. Like all space missions, it involved a myriad of partners and collaborators. Even the U.S. Coast Guard plays an important but little-known role in launch operations. In fact, the service is involved in ensuring maritime safety and security for almost every U.S. space launch.

NASA, Department of Defense and commercial space launch sites are located next to the ocean. In addition to the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) at Cape Canaveral in Florida, NASA and the Air Force also use Vandenberg Air Force Base near Lompoc, California, on the West Coast. NASA also conducts launches from its Wallops Island facility near Chincoteague, Virginia, and SpaceX has developed a commercial launch facility at Boca Chica near Brownsville, Texas, on the Gulf of Mexico. The Navy has the ability to launch targets from the Pacific Missile Range Facility on the island of Kauai, but these are not orbital missions. Other space ports are planned.

“We’ve been a mission supporter since 1955,” said Cmdr. Jill Lamb, chief of response for Sector Jacksonville, Florida.

When the space shuttle program shut down, major missions departing from the U.S. also wound down. That’s changed, however. The volume of space missions is growing as companies provide more opportunities to launch payloads, and space tourism is becoming a thing. Business is booming.

“We use a local risk assessment tool for each launch,” said Lamb. “It’s scalable, so we can look at all the factors and adjust our force laydown. It might vary, depending on if were dealing with a satellite launch or an astronaut launch.”

The Coast Guard has a memorandum of agreement with the Space Force’s 45th Space Wing. During major evolutions at the space center, the 45th, working with NASA and the commercial providers, will publish the limited access safety zone and establish a command center where the Coast Guard will participate. On launch day, the Coast Guard will monitor and patrol that zone.

Lamb said the captain of the port (COTP) promulgates a notice to mariners and local notice to mariners to set forth those limited access safety areas. In the case of the KSC launches, the COTP is the sector commander at Jacksonville, assisted by the commanding officer of Station Port Canaveral. On the day of the launch, the warnings are broadcast on marine radio channels. The restricted areas are created to keep unwary boaters or gawkers from being under an area where debris or hazardous materials might fall during a launch.

According to Chief Warrant Officer John Chandler, Station Port Canaveral’s commanding officer, the highest risk during a launch is typically within the first minute or minute and a half, depending on launch vehicle, configuration, and other factors. In some cases, flight abort tests intentionally come down shortly after launch.

“As the local unit, we always maintain a standby SAR [search and rescue] posture,” Chandler said. “During those launches that are deemed high risk, or when we receive a request from the 45th for surveillance assets, our vessels would patrol within the launch danger area, ensuring vessel masters are aware of the hazardous areas and CG enforceable limited access areas [LAAs]. Our job with the USSF day of launch is to provide CG authority in the event a boater is causing the overall risk analysis to increase, which can affect proceeding to launch, hold or scrub.”

Usually, the mere act of informing the boaters to clear out is enough.

“No one really wants to place their vessels in any unwarranted danger. But, if our crews encounter vessels within the LAAs, we are authorized by the COTP to provide notification of violation and initiate additional enforcement documentation if necessary. Thus, for those masters who are less than cooperative, we make sure they understand that these areas are under Coast Guard authority and civil and criminal penalties can be applied.”

While space launches were traditionally a NASA show, today’s launch activities are increasing commercial operations.

“We interact with Canaveral Port Authority, Brevard County Sheriff’s Office, and Florida Fish and Wildlife,” Chandler said. “Our launch partnerships include Space Force, Air Force, NASA, FAA, as well as the launch providers themselves, such as SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, Blue Origin, Boeing and Orbital ATK.”

The sector commander also wears the officer in charge of marine inspection hat and, as such, is involved with inspecting and approving vessels such as the autonomous barges used to recover the booster sections and return them to port.

“They use some highly specialized maritime vessels, and we go aboard to ensure compliance with regulations and safety requirements,” Lamb said. “It’s becoming more challenging to learn these new vessels. They don’t fit squarely into the typical ship categories we’re used to, and each of these commercial operators have their own types of vessels. And as the technology advances and their experience grows, the operators are constantly adjusting their procedures and modifying their vessels, which means we need to conduct frequent inspections to deal with the changes.”

Historic Role

From its Cape Canaveral location just south of the Kennedy Space Center and the launch complexes operated by NASA and the U.S. Air Force, Port Canaveral has played a long and historic role in the development and growth of the space industry on Florida’s Space Coast.

Large assemblies and materials such as bulk fuels can arrive by sea at Port Canaveral. The port is an extremely busy cruise ship homeport, and also hosts Navy submarines when they call at the Navy Ordnance Test Unit.

According to Port Canaveral CEO Capt. John Murray, “Public interest in commercial space operations such as crew capsule splashdowns and recovery of space-related assets has grown as the industry’s operational cadence has increased.”

The port worked with the Coast Guard and local and state law enforcement agencies to create the security model for recovery missions off the coast of Florida.

Traditionally, Coast Guard safety zones may not extend beyond U.S. waters. In December 2020, Congress included a provision to expand the safety zone authority from 12 miles up to 200 miles offshore in the National Defense Authorization Act. This gives the Coast Guard the ability and authority to set and enforce restricted vessel navigation zones to protect the safety and security of offshore and at sea space recovery operations.

Port Canaveral also worked with its state law enforcement partners at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) and commercial and military space partners to craft proposed legislation that would allow for FWC personnel to come alongside the U.S. Coast Guard in enforcing restricted vessel traffic and access to near-shore recovery operations in Florida’s coastal waters.

A new space port is being established in the Gulf of Mexico. The SpaceX South Texas launch site, also known as the Boca Chica launch site, is a private rocket production facility, test site and spaceport constructed by SpaceX, located approximately 32 kilometers east of Brownsville, Texas, on the U.S. Gulf Coast. Those launches will be supported by Sector Corpus Christi and Station South Padre Island.

The Coast Guard has the additional job of recovering rocket boosters and returning them to port. Due to the trajectories, the boosters are not jettisoned close to the launch sites — in the case of Canaveral launches, they are recovered off North Carolina. This work started in the era of the space shuttle but continues, although now some booster sections are landing on autonomous barges so they can return to port and be reloaded for a subsequent flight.

Now that U.S. capsules are once again returning to Earth, the Coast Guard has worked closely with NASA and SpaceX to plan the recovery of the SpaceX Dragon crew in August 2020. The Coast Guard established a safety zone and warned boaters to stay out of the zone before splashdown. Mariners were alerted to pending hazardous operations within a specified boundary by a broadcast notice to mariners. The zone went into effect three hours before the capsule splashed into the Gulf.

“When a when capsule detaches from the ISS, it’s coming home pretty quick,” Lamb said. “We need to be in the right place at the right time.”

When the two NASA astronauts landed in the water near Pensacola, Florida, boaters basically ignored the safety zone. The Coast Guard was not involved in recovering the crew or the capsule but was helping to keep the area clear. Boaters crowded around the spacecraft while recovery crews tried to get to the Dragon capsule and get the crew safely onto the recovery boat.

The Coast Guard said later that “numerous boaters ignored the Coast Guard crews’ warnings and decided to encroach the area, putting themselves and those involved in the operation in potential danger,” according to a statement.

More recently, an unmanned SpaceX CRS-21 Cargo Dragon capsule came down in the Gulf of Mexico west of Tampa Bay in January of this year. The Coast Guard established the safety zone and warned boaters to stay out before splashdown. The zone went into effect three hours before the capsule splashed into the Gulf exactly on time, and this time there was no interference.

While launches are becoming more routine, Lamb said they’re still spectacular to observe. “It’s a pretty incredible view.”

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy has awarded a $1.6 billion production contract to Boeing for 11 P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol reconnaissance aircraft, nine for the U.S. Navy and two for the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF).  

The Naval Air Systems Command contract modification was announced March 31 by the Defense Department. 

The contract brings the total number of U.S. Navy P-8A aircraft under contract to 128 and the RAAF total to 14. Australia has been a cooperative partner in the P-8A joint program since 2009. 

Other nations have ordered Poseidons through Foreign Military Sales. The United Kingdom is procuring nine; Norway, five; New Zealand, four; and South Korea, six. 

Through direct commercial sales, India has received or has ordered a total of 12 P-8I versions, which it calls Neptunes. 

“The P-8A continues to be an invaluable asset and these additional aircraft will help deliver expanded maritime patrol and reconnaissance capabilities to the fleet,” said Capt. Eric Gardner, program manager for the U.S. Navy’s Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Program Office, quoted in a March 31 Boeing release.   

“We continue to hear feedback from deployed Navy squadrons who tell us the P-8A is exceeding expectations,” Stu Voboril, vice president and program manager for Boeing’s P-8A program, said in the release. “Our focus is on delivering the world’s best maritime patrol aircraft. That only happens when teams truly collaborate, listen and focus on customer priorities.” 

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy has awarded Northrop Grumman a contract modification to support the service’s fleet of E-2D Advanced Hawkeye battle management aircraft and to build one additional E-2D. 

Northrop Grumman Systems Corp. Aerospace Systems, Melbourne, Florida, was awarded a $195 million contract modification from the Naval Air Systems Command to exercise options “to provide support services to include non-recurring engineering, software support activity and product support in support of E-2D Advanced Hawkeye Lot 9 full-rate production aircraft, according to a March 31 Defense Department contract announcement. In addition, the action includes the procurement of one additional E-2D. 

The Navy’s program of record plans to procure a total of 86 E-2Ds. The Japanese Air Self-Defense Force is purchasing 13 E-2Ds. 

The Navy is more than halfway through transition of its nine fleet airborne command and control (VAW) squadrons from the E-2C Hawkeye to the E-2D. 

MOBILE, Ala. — Austal USA launched the future USS Canberra (LCS 30) into Alabama’s Mobile River on March 30, the company said in an April 1 release.  

The Canberra, an Independence-class littoral combat ship, is the first ship to be launched by Austal USA in 2021 and the first to be launched from the company’s recently acquired dry dock. The Canberra is one of 19 Independence-class LCSs being built by Austal for the U.S. Navy. Austal USA so far has delivered 11 of the class to the Navy.  

The next steps for the Canberra are sea trials and then delivery to the Navy.  

LCS 30 is named in honor of the HMAS Canberra, a Royal Australian Navy heavy cruiser that fought in the Battle of Savo Island in the Solomon Islands in August 1942 during World War II and was sunk along with three U.S. Navy heavy cruisers by imperial Japanese navy forces. Later in the war, the U.S. Navy commissioned a heavy cruiser, USS Canberra (CA 70), in honor of the Australian ship and crew. The Canberra later was modified into a guided-missile heavy cruiser that served during the Vietnam War. 

PENSACOLA, Fla. — The crew of Coast Guard Cutter Walnut arrived at the cutter’s new homeport, the Coast Guard 8th District said in a March 31 release.  

The Walnut crew performed a major maintenance availability project to enable the 225-foot cutter to reach the end of its 30-year planned life service.  

“The Walnut crew looks forward to our arrival in Pensacola, Florida, and values our role in supporting Coast Guard District Eight’s continued efforts to maintain a safe and effective maritime transportation system,” said Lt. Cmdr. Christopher Bonner, commanding officer of Coast Guard Cutter Walnut. “As evidenced by the historic hurricane season of 2020, the Coast Guard and its buoy tender fleet played and will continue to play a critical role in responding to devastating natural disasters and reconstituting waterways in and around this nation’s most critical maritime ports.” 

The dockside period included loading and inventorying thousands of pounds of critical shipboard materials and equipment, conducting mission critical training to prepare for possible shipboard casualties while underway, and conducting extensive maintenance and repair on most of the shipboard machinery, electronics and auxiliary systems. 

The cutter Walnut is a 225-Foot seagoing buoy tender, which was previously homeported in Honolulu and will now be homeported in Pensacola, Florida. The cutter’s primary missions are aids to navigation, search and rescue, maritime law enforcement, maritime environmental protection and national defense missions. 

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy’s director of Air Warfare does not see a compelling case for the service to build and deploy light aircraft carriers to augment or replace the service’s large, nuclear-powered aircraft carriers (CVNs).  

“I believe the L-class ships [amphibious assault ships] operating with the F-35B would fit that bill,” said Rear Adm. Gregory Harris, the Navy’s director for Air Warfare, speaking this week at a Navy League Special Topic Breakfast webinar, sponsored by General Dynamics. “Others would disagree.” 

Harris noted that some pundits and other observers advocate light carriers because of the high cost of building, maintaining and operating the fleet of 11 CVNs, which some see as vulnerable to high-end threats such as submarines and hypersonic weapons. The capabilities of the F-35B Lightning II strike fighter have given the light carrier proponents support for their case that such a carrier armed with an air wing of F-35Bs would be highly valuable in most likely combat scenarios. 

The Navy has in the past filled amphibious assault ship flight decks with Marine Corps AV-8B Harrier II jets for combat operations from the Persian Gulf, and recently conducted an experiment on the new USS America with a load of F-35Bs. 

Defenders of CVNs note that the ship’s size enables it to carry a larger air wing, including E-2 battle management aircraft that are vital to the carrier’s over-the-horizon search and air defense capabilities. Often, they point to the 1982 Falklands War, where the U.K. Royal Navy suffered for lack of an ability to detect low-flying Argentinian attack aircraft soon enough to intercept them. 

Harris said that the Navy is “committed to executing an analysis of alternatives to look at a light carrier or a follow-on carrier to the Ford class might look like.” 

He referred to an earlier study that looked at 70 potential hull forms for aircraft carriers before settling on the Ford class.    

“I would say that the majority of that study is still very valid,” he said. “Some of the mission sets may have changed slightly so we will look at those in light of the current threat out there in the world is valid and not unnecessary. It will be good for us to do that. I’m confident that over the long run we’ll find that there’s not a compelling return on investment to make a smaller carrier just [because of] speed, station-keeping, the air wing that you would put on top of that carrier, and the ability to have the fuel for the air wing and for the carrier to have for the surface combatants. 

“So, we will execute that,” the admiral said. “We’re going to start a little bit of pre-AOA [analysis of alternatives] activities this summer and then we will look to kick that AOA off probably in the [2022] time frame to go ahead and formally revisit that.” 

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy is struggling with supplying the fleet with enough strike fighter pilots to fill its squadrons, but is seeing some progress after resolving some training aircraft issues. 

The strike fighter training pipeline is “too darn long,” said Rear Adm. Gregory Harris, the Navy’s director for Air Warfare, speaking this week in a Navy League Special Topic Breakfast webinar, sponsored by General Dynamics. “We have had significant delays over a number of years inside that program. Flat out early, we underloaded the program because we were having difficulties, so we did not pull in enough aviators, which led to some of our strike fighter pilot shortfall that we have right now.”

Harris also said the Navy has had “a number of different issues associated with different aircraft inside the series,” referring to the daunting problems with the T-45 strike training jet’s oxygen system, which resulted in a pause in training pending corrective actions.  

“We made our way through that and started pushing up production in the T-45 line,” he said, “But we [also] went through some hiccups with our T-6. We switched vendors for the supply side of the T-6 and that caused perturbations down in the primary training. We have managed to make our way widely through the T-6 piece very successfully, pushing students through aggressively into the helicopter syllabus and now we’re getting all cylinders cooking in the strike fighter syllabus.” 

The admiral noted that training delays also occurred in the strike fighter fleet replacement squadron (FRS) on the West Coast (Strike Fighter Squadron 122) with the low aircraft mission capable rates a few years ago that now have risen to 80% or greater.  

“That helped to alleviate the pressure on the FRS there in [Naval Air Station] Lemoore, California,” he said. “We have that FRS now moving at full speed. So, for beginning to end for a strike fighter pilot, it should be roughly 2 ½ years. It’s taking three years and sometimes a little bit more to get those students through.”

Harris said his own son was awarded his aviator wings last week after a time “much longer than I would have liked” in the pipeline, but he noted that another aviator winged during the same ceremony completed the syllabus in 9.5 months, the design duration, evidence that progress is being made in shortening the time in training. 

SAN DIEGO — USS Tripoli (LHA 7), the second amphibious assault ship in the America class, is highlighting its capabilities with the completion of its Fitting Out Availability (FOA) on March 26 and upcoming sea trials, Team Ships and USS Tripoli Public Affairs said in a March 31 release. 

The FOA entails changes that resulted from lessons learned and feedback from USS America’s (LHA 6) availability and work postponed due to COVID-19 protocols. Work completed during this time directly supports the vessel’s F-35B Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) capability, including onboard space reconfiguration and preparing for advanced logistical systems installment. 

When the ship is underway for sea trials, the crew will begin validating performance, operating many of the ship’s onboard systems, including navigation, damage control, mechanical and electrical systems, combat systems, communications and propulsion applications to ensure mission readiness. 

“This amphibious assault ship is ready to provide critical capabilities in supporting overall mission readiness to the Sailors and Marines of the Pacific Fleet,” said Capt. Cedric McNeal, program manager, Amphibious Warfare Programs. “With its enhanced JSF capability, this ship meets the operational needs of today, while providing capacity for the future fight.” 

Tripoli incorporates key components to provide the fleet with a more aviation-centric platform. The ship’s design features an enlarged hangar deck, aviation maintenance facilities realignment and expansion, a significant increase in available stowage for parts and support equipment, and increased aviation fuel capacity. 

The ship will enter its Post Delivery Test and Trials phase, followed by Final Contract Trials with the Board of Inspection and Survey and the Post Shakedown Availability before eventual national tasking. 

“The combined post-delivery and Tripoli team completed six months of depot-level work on time, a significant accomplishment in this COVID environment,” said Capt. Joel Lang, Tripoli’s commanding officer.  “The crew is ready to take the ship to sea to complete bow-to-stern testing to prove the combat effectiveness of assault carrier 7.” 

The future USS Bougainville (LHA 8) is currently in production at Huntington Ingalls Industries and LHA 9 contract award is on track for 2021. 

NAPLES — Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group began flight operations in support of Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) from the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, March 31, 2021.  

Aircraft from Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 3 supported Combined Joint Task Force OIR, demonstrating U.S. commitment to security in the region, U.S. 6th Fleet Public Affairs said in a March 31 release.  

“Our Strike Group is ready and capable of providing direct, long-range combat operational air support from the Eastern Mediterranean Sea,” said Rear Adm. Scott F. Robertson, commander, Carrier Strike Group Two. “CSG-2’s presence in U.S. 6th Fleet shows the flexibility of our naval forces to conduct operations whenever and wherever necessary. We can provide a wide range of options to our nation and allies in deterring adversarial aggression and disruption of maritime security and regional stability.” 

IKE’s operation in the Mediterranean Sea demonstrates the capability of the U.S. Navy to support OIR from multiple theaters, highlighting the mobility, flexibility, and power projection capability of the U.S. Navy’s carrier strike groups. 

Operating from the Eastern Mediterranean enables IKE to seamlessly support three combatant commanders, ensuring immediate responses in a rapidly evolving security environment. IKE CSG brings multi-mission capable platforms to the U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations with strike, ballistic missile defense, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities. 

Deploying ships and aircraft of the strike group, commanded by Robertson, include flagship USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69); the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Monterey (CG 61); Destroyer Squadron 22 ships include Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers USS Mitscher (DDG 57), USS Laboon (DDG 58), USS Mahan (DDG 72), and USS Thomas Hudner (DDG 116). 

Squadrons of Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 3, embarked on Eisenhower include the “Fighting Swordsmen” of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 32, “Gunslingers” of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 105, “Wildcats” of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 131, “Rampagers” of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 83; “Dusty Dogs” of Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 7, “Swamp Foxes” of Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 74, “Screwtops” of Airborne Command and Control Squadron (VAW) 123, “Zappers” of Electronic Attack Squadron (VAQ) 130 and a detachment from Fleet Logistics Support Squadron (VRC) 40 “Rawhides.”