Spain Plans to Upgrade Navy's Projection Group

Sea Power, Oct 2004

IZAR Construcciones Navales and the Spanish Navy signed an engineering contract Aug. 3 for the project definition phase for the upgrade to the Spanish Navy's Projection Group. The Projection Group consists of the aircraft carrier Principe de Asturias, the six Santa Maria-class frigates and the Fleet Replenishment Ship Patino.

These units have reached a third of their design life and require systems upgrades as well as modernization to improve crew living. Included in the package will be the upgrade of support centers to allow for maintenance of the new systems installed onboard the eight vessels.

Under the project definition phase, IZAR with its working team consisting of its Technical Department, IZAR Carenas and IZAR Systems, will develop the roadmap to identify, define and integrate all of the components in the modernization package. This phase is expected to last through May 2005, at which time the sea service will probably begin to conduct the individual modernization packages.

The Santa Maria class, of which the first units began to enter service in the mid-1980s, will probably be the first units to enter the modernization cycle. Upgrades reportedly include the addition of a new weapons direction system, the Thales Naval Nederland Sting EO tracker, an infrared camera, K-band radar and laser range finder. Units that have not received the Ensa Elnath communications intercept system will do so during this modernization package.

The Principe de Asturias aircraft carrier, commissioned in 1988, will probably receive its mid-life refit from 2006 through 2008 and the Patino, commissioned in 1995, will probably follow by around 2009. Details of the Asturias' refit are not yet defined, but most major weapons and sensor systems are expected to receive, at a minimum, the latest software upgrades, communications upgrades for better interoperability with allied forces, as well as a major hull and power plant maintenance package. For the Patino, the focus will more than likely be hull and power plant maintenance.