U.S. Navy Upgrades First P-8A Poseidon with New Submarine-Hunting Tech

The first P-8A Poseidon aircraft has completed Increment 3 Block 2 modifications at Boeing’s MRO facility in Jacksonville, Florida, marking a key milestone in the U.S. Navy’s maritime patrol modernization effort.

This upgrade equips the P-8A with its full intended capabilities for anti-submarine warfare (ASW), anti-surface warfare (ASuW), and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), fulfilling a key element of the aircraft program’s evolutionary acquisition strategy.

As the Department of Defense’s only long-range, full-spectrum ASW cue-to-kill platform, the P-8A now features a revamped airframe and avionics suite. Key additions include new radome, sensors, antennas, airframe racks, and upgraded wiring. The update also integrates a new combat system suite featuring faster computer processing, enhanced cybersecurity, wideband SATCOM, signals intelligence tools, a track management system, and upgraded communication and acoustic subsystems.

Future updates to the aircraft will follow through a series of rapid capability insertion efforts, expanding on the Increment 3 Block 2 baseline to respond to emerging global threats.