Defense company BAE Systems has received an additional $11.5 million production order for a Columbia-class submarine component. Under this contract, BAE Systems will manufacture an additional component for the US Navy.

 

 

This delivery order originates from the $72 million contract BAE Systems won in 2023 to provide components for the Columbia-class submarine. The component is a sequence-critical heavy structure that supports the US Navy’s newest ballistic missile submarine.

This work will be performed at our Louisville, Kentucky site, where the firm will perform integrated fabrication, welding, machining, testing and outfitting for naval complex structures and systems.

Florida Shipyard also fabricates submarine components for the Columbia-class submarine and is a strategic partner to the maritime industrial base shipbuilders.

“The award is a testament to the hard-working, highly-skilled employees in Louisville, who manufacture complex submarine structures and our engineering expertise in Minneapolis,” said Charles Lewis, director of Submarine Programs for Platforms & Services at BAE Systems.

“Our personnel and facilities have the deep specialized capability and experience needed to support submarine and maritime industrial construction. We look forward to carrying on our commitment to meeting the production needs of these national security assets that keep our Sailors safe.”

The Columbia-class program’s goal is to design and build a class of 12 new ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) to replace the US Navy’s current force of 14 aging Ohio-class SSBNs. The Ohio-class submarines were designed to have a service life of 42 years.

As the Ohio-class SSBNs were first deployed in 1981, they will start reaching the end of their service between 2027 and 2040, at a rate of about one boat per year. Starting in 2031, the US Navy plans to replace each retiring Ohio-class boat with a new Columbia-class SSBN submarine.

US Navy submarines are built at two shipyards – General Dynamics Electric Boat (GDEB) and Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding (HII/NNS) division.

The shipyards will build the 12 Columbia-class submarines between 2021 and 2039, with GDEB as the prime contractor. HII/NNS will participate in the design and will manufacture major Columbia-class assemblies and modules, including the bow, stern, auxiliary machinery room, superstructure and weapons modules.

HII”s Newport News Shipbuilding division cut the first steel of the first boat back in 2019.