page_title: USS Triton (SSRN-586)
section_title: General characteristics
hierarchical_section_title: USS Triton (SSRN-586) / Design history / General characteristics
caption_attribution_description: English: USS Triton (SSRN-586) - Combat Information Center (CIC). Original caption from Source: Triton's Air Control Center. After the radar picket role was dropped this large space was readily adapted to many other uses including, the author's surmise, electronic intelligence gathering. (Naval Historical Center).
context_page_description: USS Triton was a United States Navy radar picket nuclear submarine. In early 1960, it became the first vessel to execute a submerged circumnavigation of the Earth in Operation Sandblast. Triton accomplished this objective during her shakedown cruise while under the command of Captain Edward L. "Ned" Beach, Jr. She was the only member of her class and had the distinction of being the only Western submarine powered by two nuclear reactors.
  Triton was the second submarine and the fourth ship of the United States Navy to be named for the Greek god Triton. At the time of her commissioning in 1959, Triton was the largest, most powerful, and most expensive submarine ever built at $109 million excluding the cost of nuclear fuel and reactors.
  Triton's mission as a radar picket submarine was made obsolete after two years by the introduction of the carrier-based Grumman WF-2 Tracer airborne early warning aircraft. She was converted to an attack submarine in 1962 and became the flagship for the Commander, Submarine Forces, U.S. Atlantic Fleet in 1964. She was decommissioned in 1969, the first U.S. nuclear submarine to be taken out of service.
  Triton's hull was moored at the St.
context_section_description: Triton was a first-generation U.S. nuclear-powered submarine, along with Nautilus, Seawolf, Halibut, and Skate (and her sisters). While serving as fully operational units of the U.S. Navy, the vessels also played key developmental roles.  Nautilus introduced the use of nuclear power for ship propulsion. Seawolf utilized a liquid-metal nuclear reactor using liquid sodium as an alternative heat exchange medium to pressurized water.  Halibut was the first nuclear-powered submarine to perform a strategic nuclear deterrence patrol armed with Regulus cruise missiles. The Skates were the first nuclear-powered submarine class with more than one ship built.  Triton's unique contribution to the development of nuclear power for naval propulsion was her dual reactor plant, which provided the speed required for radar picket missions.
  Radar picket submarines (Navy classification "SSR") were developed during the post-war period to provide intelligence information, electronic surveillance, and fighter aircraft interception control for forward-deployed naval forces. Unlike destroyers used as radar picket ships during World War Two, these submarines could avoid attack by submerging if detected. The U.S. Navy's MIGRAINE program involved converting existing fleet submarines into radar picket vessels, and the Navy also ordered two purpose-built diesel-electric SSRs, Sailfish and Salmon.  However, these were incapable of sustaining the high submerged or surfaced speeds necessary to operate with fast carrier task forces and therefore unsuitable to the task.
  Nuclear power offered the only possible solution. Triton was designed in the mid-1950s as a radar picket submarine capable of operating at high speed, on the surface, in advance of an aircraft carrier task force. Triton's high speed came from her twin-reactor nuclear propulsion plant, with a designed speed, surfaced and submerged, of 28 kn (32 mph; 52 km/h). On 27 September 1959, Triton achieved "well in excess of" 30 kn (35 mph; 56 km/h) during her initial sea trials.
  To meet her radar picket role, Triton's main air search radar initially used the AN/SPS-26, the U.S. Navy's first electronically scanned, three-dimensional search radar which was laboratory tested in 1953. The first set was installed on board the destroyer leader Norfolk prior to its installation on board Triton in 1959. Since it was scanned electronically in elevation, the AN/SPS-26 set did not need a separate height-finding radar.  A submarine version of SPS-26, designated BPS-10, was under development, and it was slated for installation on Triton.  To process its radar, electronic, and air traffic data, Triton had a Combat Information Center (CIC) located in a separate air control compartment, situated between Triton's reactor and operations compartments.
  Design work on a nuclear-powered radar picket submarine (SSRN) began in 1954–1955. As initially designed, it had a three-level hull, with its Combat Intelligence Center (CIC) (see image) located on the middle level.  Its overall length was initially 400 feet (120 m), with a beam of 38 feet (12 m).  Also as initially designed, its displacement was 4,800 tons surfaced and 6,500 tons submerged.  January 1955 performance estimates called for the SAR propulsion plant to produce 34,000 shaft horsepower (25,000 kW), with a surfaced speed of 27 kn (31 mph; 50 km/h) and a submerged speed of 23 kn (26 mph; 43 km/h).  Triton initially had the same dual radar system installed on the non-nuclear Sailfish-class radar picket submarines (i.e., BPS-2 search radar and BPS-3 height-finder set) housed in a large, stepped sail (see image).  Construction cost was initially estimated at $78,000,000.  Subsequent growth of the SAR propulsion plant necessitated the overall increase in Triton's length and tonnage, although without any loss in speed,  while the installation of the AN/SPS-26 3-D search radar allowed the elimination of a separate height-finder.
  Triton was to be the lead ship of a proposed class of nuclear-powered radar picket submarines. A December 1955 long-range naval planning repor
caption: Triton's Combat Information Center (CIC), displaying status board and radar consoles
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