Sea-Air-Space 2024: NSWC Indian Head Division is “Front and Center” at What CNO Calls “Decisive Decade”

Sea-Air-Space 2024: NSWC Indian Head Division is "Front and Center" at What CNO Calls "Decisive Decade"

By NSWC Indian Head Public Affairs Office

"We must prioritize increasing industrial capacity to meet our era's global challenges. We are at a turning point in our Nation's history." - The Honorable Carlos Del Toro, Secretary of the Navy, in his remarks at Sea-Air-Space 2024.

Naval Surface Warfare Center Indian Head Division (NSWC IHD) Deputy Technical Director Steve Anthony presented the command's role in rebuilding the country's industrial base at the Sea-Air-Space Exposition in National Harbor, Maryland, April 10.

In the event's opening ceremony, Adm. Lisa Franchetti, Chief of Naval Operations, said, "In this decisive decade, [we're going to] really focus on the [Navy's] readiness as we continue to invest in that infrastructure that is going to set the conditions to really accelerate our shipbuilding as we go forward."

A significant portion of that investment has arrived in the form of the Navy's Energetics Comprehensive Modernization Plan (ECMP), a $2.7 billion, 15-year modernization plan to bolster the Navy's Energetics Organic Defense Industrial Base. With $120 million obligated in the FY23 budget and a $200 million obligation planned for FY24, the funding will restore NSWC IHD's infrastructure to meet the Navy's mission.

"The investment is here. [NSWC IHD] is going to be front and center," said Anthony. "As an arsenal, what we do is critical to the Nation's munitions industrial base. We provide complete cradle to grave programs - we do it all from Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT&E) to disposal and everything in between. We will continue to partner with the Department of Defense, industry, academia and the greater community to accomplish the Navy's goals over the 15-year course of ECMP."

Anthony gave an overview of the more than 500 ECMP-funded projects in energetics manufacturing, engineering, explosive ordnance disposal and RDT&E that the warfare center will undertake over the next 15 years to increase the country's munitions production output to meet the increased demand signal in the current geopolitical climate.

NSWC IHD - a field activity of the Naval Sea Systems Command and part of the Navy's Science and Engineering Establishment - is the leader in ordnance, energetics, and EOD solutions. The Division focuses on energetics research, development, testing, evaluation, in-service support, manufacturing and disposal; and provides warfighters solutions to detect, locate, access, identify, render safe, recover, exploit and dispose of explosive ordnance threats.

-NAVSEA-