Navy looking for T-AGOS design and construction proposals

The Navy is asking industry for design and construction proposals for the Auxiliary General Ocean Surveillance Ship.

The service released its final request for proposals today for the T-AGOS 25-class, a ship that gathers underwater acoustic data to support antisubmarine warfare operations.

The ships use Surveillance Towed-Array Sensor Systems equipment to gather undersea data and carry electronic equipment to process and transmit that data via satellite, according to Navy budget justification documents.

The Navy plans to procure seven T-AGOS(X) ocean surveillance ships as replacements for its five in-service T-AGOS ships, according to a Congressional Research Service report released earlier this month.

The first of the planned seven T-AGOS(X)s was included in the final version of the fiscal year 2022 defense authorization bill. The service requested $434.4 million for the first ship.

“The Navy’s desire to replace the five in-service T-AGOS ships with seven larger and faster T-AGOS(X)s can be viewed as a response by the Navy to the submarine modernization efforts of countries such as China and Russia,” the CRS report states.

The service wants to use one shipbuilder to build all seven T-AGOS(X)s, according to the CRS.