Hydroid wins contract for Launch & Recovery System

Hydroid to deliver a Launch & Recovery System (LARS) to be used on a U.S. Navy Glider contract.

Hydroid announced today that they have recently been awarded a contract from Teledyne Brown Engineering for a Launch & Recovery System (LARS) to be used on a U.S. Navy Glider contract. The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, on behalf of the Navy's Program Executive Office for C4I awarded the contract to design, engineer, build, test, and deliver ocean Littoral Battlespace Sensing-Gliders (LBS-G) to Teledyne Brown Engineering, Inc (TBE), of Huntsville, Alabama earlier this year.

Teledyne Brown will lead the effort using the Teledyne Webb Research "SLOCUM" Glider. Teledyne's initial cost plus incentive fee contract is valued at $6.2 million. If all options are exercised, the contract would be valued at approximately $52.6 million.

Commenting on the recent contract award Jean Downs, Teledyne Browns Program Manager of the Littoral Battlespace Sensing-Glider contract said, "we are pleased to have Hydroid on our team as a subcontractor to supply the shipboard LARS for this contract. Deploying and recovering these gliders in rough sea conditions without putting a small boat in the water is critical to the success of the program."

Ms. Downs further stated that "the SLOCUM gliders will be deployed from T-AGS 60 Pathfinder class ships, and Hydroid's experience with LARS systems for the REMUS 6000 UUVs deployed from this class of ship will prove very beneficial to our team."

At present there are several other LARS deployed on T-AGS 60 ships used for the deployment and recovery of the Naval Oceanographic Office (NAVO) very deep diving REMUS 6000 UUVs. Kevin McCarthy, Vice President of Marketing at Hydroid, stated that "the LARS that will be delivered to Teledyne Brown will be very similar to the units that are presently in the field. The systems will be field retrofitable to change out the docking head, thus enabling the same LARS to handle either Teledyne Webb SLOCUM gliders, or REMUS UUV assets."