Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) is preparing its Portsmouth, N.H., shipyard for the first extensive maintenance availability of a Virginia-class nuclear attack submarine, a NAVSEA official said May 5.
The class lead ship, USS Virginia, will go into Portsmouth in October for an expected 14-month period, Sharon Smoot, executive director of Logistics, Maintenance and Industrial Operations, said in a briefing at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space Exposition.
To prepare for that availability and future work on Virginia-class boats, NAVSEA had to review its two shipyards that specialize in nuclear-powered subs, Smoot said. That led to extensive modifications to Portsmouth’s dry dock and other facilities. Similar work will have to be done to prepare the Pearl Harbor shipyard for the availability of USS Texas, the second sub in the class, planned for May 2012.
Smoot could not say what the modifications would cost.
Preparing for the Virginia-class availabilities also required training for the shipyards’ engineers and workers, with the help of the two private submarine construction yards, Northrop Grumman Newport News and General Dynamics Electric Boat, she said.
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