Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS) division launched the future US Navy attack submarine USS Massachusetts at its facilities in Virginia on Friday, February 23.
The future Massachusetts is the 25th Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarine and will be the 12th delivered by NNS, which is one of only two shipyards capable of designing and building nuclear-powered submarines for the US Navy.
As with its Virginia-class sisters, the submarine will be capable of operating in littoral and deep waters. Missions will include anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface ship warfare, strike warfare, special operations forces support, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), irregular warfare, and mine warfare.
