The Navy awarded a $5.1 billion contract to Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding Newport News Sept. 10 for the detail design and construction of the future USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78), the lead ship in the Navy's newest class of aircraft carrier.
Under this contract, Northrop Grumman will complete the detail design and construction of CVN 78, which includes engineering; integration; related development efforts including drawing and work package development; advanced planning; design weight estimate; lifecycle support products and related logistics data; production planning; test and evaluation; further definition of initiatives to reduce CVN 78 class total ownership costs; and data necessary to support construction of CVN 78.
"This is an exciting day for the CVN 78 Program Office and for the Navy," said Capt. Brian Antonio, CVN 78 program manager in the Program Executive Office for Aircraft Carriers.
"When USS Gerald R. Ford is delivered to the fleet in 2015, it will bring superior warfighting capability and meaningful quality-of-life improvements for Sailors, in addition to greatly reduced lifecycle costs. Most important, CVN 78-class carriers will be able to adapt and evolve to defend this nation and our allies well into the 21st century," he said.
CVN 78 is the Navy's first major investment in aircraft carrier design in more than three decades and features many improvements over the 1960's Nimitz-class design. CVN 78 includes a new flight deck with an improved weapons handling system, advanced arresting gear, a completely re-engineered electro-magnetic aircraft launch system, new and simplified nuclear propulsion plants, a new electrical power generation system and reconfigurable design architecture.
"Together, these improvements provide transformational warfighting capabilities and enable reduced manning, ultimately reducing the total ownership cost of each Ford-class carrier by approximately $5 billion over the life of the ship," said Antonio.
CVN 78 was officially named Gerald R. Ford by the Secretary of the Navy in January 2007 and will be constructed in Newport News, Va. The keel is scheduled to be laid in late 2009, and the ship is scheduled to be delivered to the Navy in 2015. The Navy plans to build 11 Ford-class aircraft carriers, and construction of Ford-class aircraft carriers is projected to continue through 2058.