HII Ingalls Shipbuilding awarded contract modification to conduct DDG 1002 sea trials

Ingalls Shipbuilding received a contract modification to conduct sea trials for DDG 1002, shown here. (HII)

The US Navy (USN) awarded HII's Ingalls Shipbuilding division of Pascagoula, Mississippi a USD99 million contract modification to conduct sea trials for the Zumwalt-class guided-missile destroyer Lyndon B Johnson (DDG 1002), HII confirmed in a statement on 19 October.

The ship arrived at Ingalls Shipbuilding in January 2022 to complete the installation, activation and testing of the combat systems and the contract modifications comes as the ship is being prepared for Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) weapon system integration, HII noted.

In 2021, the USN decided to add hypersonic CPS missiles—at a planned cost of nearly USD50 million per missile—to the DDG 1000 class destroyers to enable the US to strike valuable, heavily defended targets from a distance with a non-nuclear payload, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) noted in its July 2026 report, Navy Ship Modernisation DOD Needs Comprehensive Strategy to Field Hypersonic Missile Capability .

To create its first maritime CPS platform, the USN must modernise Zumwalt-class ships to include installing a vertical launch system (VLS) for CPS missiles, the GAO reported.

In its report, the GAO detailed reasons for delays in Zumwalt-class modernisation efforts for USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000) and follow-on ships of the class.

“Until mid-2025, the DDG 1000 programme was generally meeting cost targets for CPS weapon system installation during DDG 1000's BYMP [build yard modernisation period] and DDG 1002's MSA [mission systems activation] period,” the GAO said.

USN programme officials reported that the plan to sequence modernisation around the planned deployment of the DDG 1001 has worked well, the GAO reported.