South Korea's Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) has entered into an agreement with local shipbuilder Hanwha Ocean for the detailed design and lead ship construction for the Korean Next-Generation Destroyer (KDDX) programme.
DAPA said the KDDX programme will consolidate accumulated shipbuilding technology and will source onboard weapon systems locally, thus reducing reliance on other countries in the construction of the Republic of Korea Navy's (ROKN) first locally-built Aegis destroyer.
The lead KDDX ship is scheduled to be delivered to the ROKN in 2032.
Under the detailed design and lead ship construction stage, the basic design results will be detailed into technical documents and manufacturing drawings, and performance will be verified through ship construction and test evaluation based on these results.
In particular, DAPA plans to actively incorporate the latest technologies developed since the basic design, such as advancing ship design and construction technologies based on virtual models, building multi-layered anti-drone defence systems, and establishing 5G-based integrated wired-wireless communication environments.
