WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy took delivery of the last piece of the littoral combat ship’s anti-submarine warfare mission module Nov. 30, according to a release from Naval Sea Systems Command, pushing the service closer to declaring the well-delayed capability operational despite continued headwinds.

With the delivery of Raytheon’s Dual-mode Array Transmitter (DART) Mission System — which joins the MH-60R helicopter, the Multi-Function Towed Array and the SQQ-89 acoustic processing — the Navy now has the complete anti-submarine warfare mission package and is ready to start integrating it.

The package “will provide revolutionary capabilities to the fleet,” Capt. Ted Zobel, LCS Mission Module program manager, said in the release.

The Navy will now send the DART system to a “vessel of opportunity” and put it to work at the Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center, prior to former developmental testing on the LCS Fort Worth, the release said.

Congress to buy 3 more LCS than the Navy needs, but gut funding for sensors that make them valuable Lawmakers are set to fund a 33rd, 34th and 35th littoral combat ship, three more than the 32-ship requirement set by the Navy. But the sensors destined for those ships are another story.

And while the immediate future of the system is known, the future for the mission module more broadly is uncertain. Congress has slashed all funding to the anti-submarine warfare mission module for 2019, saying it was ahead of need, meaning that testing delays will surely follow, sources familiar with the impact of funding cuts told Defense News in September.

An analysis of appropriations bills dating back to 2015 shows that Congress has slashed funding to the mission modules every year. Sources familiar with the situation said the cuts have led to a merry-go-round of delays, which Congress cites the next year as a reason for more cuts.

But Congress continues to buy ships every year, even buying a 33rd, 34th and 35th LCS above the 32-ship requirement set by the Navy.

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