Raytheon Dualpack, DP48 cannister
Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems, which provides integrated air-/missile-defence and marine war-fighting systems (including modelling and simulation capabilities) has invited stork Fokker to design, develop, qualify, and manufacture a low-weight missile launch tube (or canister) for the Mk 56 vertical-launch system (VLS) in Nato’s ESSM Danish Stanflex missile programme.
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By March 2003, a qualification canister had been used for four live firings from the US self-defence test ship at Port Hueneme, California (USA), as part of the ESSM at-sea firing programme. Stork Fokker’s canister design comprises a filament-wound carbonfibre-reinforced plastic launch tube and removable guide rail that together save 30% of the weight and a significant amount of the life-cycle cost and parts count compared with alternative methods. |
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An integrated ablative canister lining permits the tube to be used for ten firings (including an inadvertent or restrained firing). Stork Fokker has qualified a re-usable composite DP48 canister that incorporates two independent single-cell units in a dual pack in the launcher frame, replacing the space previously occupied by one Mk 20 canister in the Mk 48 VLS. |
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