The Lockheed Martin [LMT]-built Littoral Combat Ship Little Rock (LCS-9) successfully completed builder’s trials last week, a milestone is preparing the fifth Freedom-variant LCS for acceptance trials within weeks, the company said Monday.
The builder’s trials included company sea trails held in Lake Michigan designed to test how the ship performs under different operating conditions. The company noted these trials demonstrated reliability and performance improvements on the propulsion system. During trials the ship reached speeds upwards of 40 knots.
Lockheed Martin builds Freedom-variants of the LCS with Fincantieri Marinette Marine in Wisconsin. The company noted their future Freedom variants ships will include improvements demonstrated in this latest LCS.
The Freedom LCS team is now preparing LCS-9 for acceptance trials with the Navy’s Board of Inspection and Survey, which conducts final demonstrations and inspections before delivery to the service later this year.
“The Freedom-variant LCS plays a critical role in the U.S. Navy’s fleet, and we are committed to getting Little Rock and her highly capable sister ships into combatant commanders’ hands as quickly as possible,” Joe North, vice president of Littoral Ships and Systems at Lockheed Martin, said in a statement.
The Freedom-variant LCS team is set to complete sea trials and delivery for both LCS-9 and LCS-11 in 2017. The remaining contracted ships are planned to be delivered to the Navy at a rate of two ships every year. Lockheed Martin said beyond the Little Rock there are seven other ships being constructed at Fincantieri Marinette Marine and another in long-lead production.
The future USS Little Rock is planned to be commissioned in Buffalo, N.Y. later in 2018, alongside its namesake, a Cleveland-class light cruiser commissioned in 1945 and later converted to a guided missile cruiser of the Galveston-class in the late 1950s.
The Freedom-variant team includes Lockheed Martin, Fincantieri Marinette Marine, Gibbs and Cox as naval architect, and hundreds of suppliers.