Pakistan Receives Third Agosta 90B Submarine Equipped with MESMA Air Independent Propulsion System

Released on Tuesday, September 30, 2008

 

On 26 September 2008, the Pakistan Navy completed customer acceptance testing of PNS Hamza, a DCNS-designed type Agosta 90B diesel-electric submarine featuring a Mesma® air-independent propulsion system in a dedicated hull section. The Mesma® AIP module generates electrical power without snorkelling, so enabling the boat to remain submerged for far longer.

Following intensive sea trials, the customer formally declared that PNS Hamza met its acceptance criteria. The submarine was built entirely by Pakistan Naval Dockyard in Karachi under a DCNS technology transfer programme. Two additional Mesma® modules are currently under construction for sister boats PNS Khalid and PNS Saad and will be integrated with them when they come up for major refit.

The success of the Mesma® programme is a direct result of exemplary cooperation between the Pakistan Navy, PN Dockyard, Karachi Shipyard & Engineering Works Limited (KSEW) and DCNS. The successful integration of the first Mesma® module with PNS Hamza in Karachi – a world first in itself – is a tribute to the competence of the participating French and Pakistani teams and the way they applied and ensured compliance with an industrial integration process that is both rigorous and repeatable.

The Mesma® programme, launched in 1995, confirms the wisdom of the technological choices involved in developing a robust high-performance solution to increase the submerged endurance of otherwise conventional diesel-electric submarines.

Mesma®, currently the highest performance AIP on the world market, offers two key advantages over its competitors, namely ease of integration and excellent acoustic discretion. Mesma® modules can be readily tailored to and integrated with any conventional submarine without compromising the design’s main budgets (power, mass, etc.). In addition to inherent ease of operation, reliability and safety, Mesma® runs on fuels that are readily available on the world market and requires little maintenance. Overall, Mesma® draws on DCNS’s proven expertise in steam engineering as applied to nuclear propulsion.

DCNS is deeply honoured by the Pakistan Navy’s confidence and the opportunity thus afforded to launch the production of the best AIP currently available on the world market.

DCNS continues to develop AIP systems to offer technologies combining ever higher performance and ready risk-free integration with new-build and existing submarine designs at any stage of their life cycle.

 

Source: Pakistan Navy completes acceptance testing of PNS Hamza