Jane Edwards
A team led by Lockheed Martin has introduced a new Littoral Combat Ship for the U.S. Navy at a Marinette Marine-owned shipyard in the Menominee River in Wisconsin.
The company said Saturday Janee Bonner served as the sponsor for the USS Little Rock and Navy Secretary Ray Mabus delivered the keynote address at the christening ceremony held Saturday.
Lockheed collaborated with Marinette Marine and Gibbs & Cox to build the Freedom-variant LC9 9, which is set to enter the outfitting and testing phase as the industry team prepares to deliver the vessel to the service branch by the end of this year.
Joe North, vice president of littoral ships and systems at Lockheed, said his company and industry partners will work to add interchangeable mission components intended for the vessel to perform countermeasure missions for submarines and surface ships.
The Lockheed-led consortium has already handed the USS Freedom and USS Forth Worth to the Navy and is currently building seven other vessels under the LCS program such as Sioux City, Wichita, Billings, St. Louis, Indianapolis and St. Louis.
