Kennedy's successful sea trials showcase advanced radar and catapults, marking a significant leap in U.S. naval power projection and carrier aviation innovation.
By Kris Osborn, Warrior
New high-tech surveillance radar, electromagnetic catapults, advanced arresting gear and the ability to launch and recover combat-critical drones are merely a few of the technologies woven into the US Navy’s USS John F. Kennedy, the 2nd Ford-class carrier. In a historic and widely celebrated development, the USS Kennedy has completed its first ocean for Sea Trials, something seen as a “massive” step forward for U.S, Navy power projection. As the second The Ford-class carrier, the Kennedy with further fortify a new generation of Carrier Air Wing technology with electromagnetic catapults, advanced weapons elevators and a larger flight deck to enable a higher sortie rate.
The deployment of the first-in-class USS Ford likely inspired further curiosity about the USS Kennedy. The USS Kennedy will replace the USS Nimitz, which is due to retire by 2027 or potentially be extended to enable a 12-carrier fleet; the Ford-class carriers are slated to incrementally replace the existing Nimitz-class carriers on a one-to-one basis in coming decades. In recent years, the U.S. Navy has hoped that the launch and anticipated success of the USS Kennedy would reflect key lessons learned from the technological struggles associated with development of the USS Ford. The Ford is now successful and operational, as it proved vital in the operation to capture Maduro in Venezuela, yet its advanced technologies such as its electromagnetic catapult and elevators encountered numerous challenges as they matured. Overall, the Navy has successfully endured these challenges and now deploys an extremely capable first-of-its kind next-generation carrier.
New Radar on Ship
The USS Kennedy will have many of the same technologies and attributes engineered into the USS Ford, yet there are a few key differences. Years ago, the Navy decided to build a new, highly-sensitive ship-defense radar technology for its second Ford-class aircraft carrier—to detect incoming enemy fire, anti-ship cruise missiles, and airborne threats such as attacking drones, fixed-wing aircraft, and helicopters. The new radar, called the Enterprise Air Surveillance Radar, or EASR, is installed on the Kennedy, as well as several of the service’s amphibious ships, such as the USS Bougainville (LHA 8).
The decision for the new radar emerged out of a special radar commonality and affordability study conducted by the Navy years ago, which looked at finding technologies that would work across multiple platforms. The EASR is engineered as a 3-faced phased array radar designed to be adaptive and rotate.
EASR uses gallium nitride (GaN) semi-conductor technology and builds upon common hardware, software and processing elements of the Navy’s next-generation AN/SPY-6(V) Air and Missile Defense Radar now on the service’s Flight III DDG 51 destroyers. EASR uses digital beam forming and advanced algorithms for operations in high-clutter, near-land electromagnetic interference environments, Raytheon data says.
The AN/SPY-6 is described as being 35-times more powerful than most-current ship-based radar systems; developers say it enables detection of objects twice as far away and half the size compared with existing radars. In radar terminology, a 15-decibel increase with AMDR translates into roughly 35 times more power and sensitivity compared to the existing AN/SPY-1D radar.
USS Kennedy vs USS Ford radar
For cost and cross-fleet commonality reasons, EASR was chosen as the future radars for carriers and amphibs, despite the fact that the first Ford-Class carrier uses Dual Band Radar.
Dual Band Radar was originally slated to go on 27 new, high-tech DDG 1000 destroyers. However, when the Navy changed plans and only decided to procure three DDG 1000s, the price of Dual Band Radar went up. This led Navy developers to think about the mission requirements for carriers, as the surveillance functions of EASR are sufficient to meet the requirements of the Kennedy.
Kennedy in Carrier Strike Group
The USS Kennedy, much like the Ford, will likely travel in a Carrier Strike Group under protection of heavily armed warships such as DDG 51 Flight III destroyers, warships with much more sensitive long range radar intended to track and intercept ballistic missiles. Carriers do not operate with Vertical Launch Systems and therefore do not use ballistic missile interceptor weapons such as the SM-3 and SM-6. However they will be defended by warships armed with those weapons.
Navy developers say commonality and cost reduction are entirely consistent with integrating next-generation detection ability; further, carriers do not need radar as sensitive and powerful as Dual Band Radar, in part because carriers typically have a destroyer or a cruiser nearby to help protect it by providing a defensive radar envelope.
EASR has some of the technical capabilities of the Dual Band Radar such as fire control radar capability, however engineering the new EASR for the USS Kennedy, saved the Navy several hundred million dollars. EASR is configured to perform the functions of existing ship radars such as the AN/SPS-49 and the three-dimensional AN/SPS-48 anti-aircraft sensor currently on Navy destroyers and cruisers.
Construction Strategy
US Navy and HII builders of the USS Kennedy sought to harvest lessons learned from the successes and growing pains experienced during the construction of the USS Ford. One of the techniques used for the Kennedy’s construction has included efforts to assemble compartments and parts of the ship together before moving them to the dock, greatly expediting construction by allowing builders to integrate larger parts of the ship more quickly.
Building a Carrier
This technique, referred to by HII developers as “modular construction,” was also used when building the Ford; the process welds smaller sections of the ship together into larger structural “superlift” units before being lifted into the dry dock.
Construction begins on the bottom of the ship and works up with inner-bottoms and side shells before moving to box units, HII data explains. Also, some of the design methods now used for the Kennedy include efforts to fabricate or forge some parts of the ship—instead of casting them—because it makes the process less expensive.
Now that the USS Kennedy has embarked upon its life at sea, many are certainly hoping it performs as successfully as expected, something which seems entirely realistic given the operational success of the USS Ford.
Kris Osborn is the President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a highly qualified expert in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University