Testing to resume for submarine Massachusetts, but delivery delay confirmed by HII CEO

Submarine Massachusetts' delivery will be delayed. (Janes/Michael Fabey)

HII's Newport News Shipbuilding unit looks to resume testing on submarine Massachusetts (SSN 798) after equipment issues have caused a delivery delay, HII president and CEO Chris Kastner confirmed on 1 August during a quarterly call with investment analysts.

During the second quarter, Kastner said, “SSN 798 construction team experienced a minor disruption to the Massachusetts test programme due to some equipment replacement identified during testing.”

He added, “The disruption has been resolved, and the team is back into the test programme, making steady progress. It does, however, shift delivery from late 2024 to early 2025.”

Despite the issues on the Block IV Virginia-class submarine, Kastner said, “We're marching towards delivery on 798. We did have that minor move on the milestone, but they're making progress on the test programme now. I fully expect 798 will resolve at the beginning of next year.”

Virginia-class Arkansas (SSN 800) is also “making progress”, he said.

“The [next] milestone is holding the float off the back half of this year, and then we have one more module that we have to deliver to General Dynamics.”

General Dynamics' Electric Boat division is building the Virginia-class submarines with HII's Newport News Shipbuilding.

Kastner also told analysts, “We're making progress on Block V [Virginia-class submarines] and they'll start to fill in behind Block IV.”

The shipyards are “getting into the integrated delivery and test of the Block V Virginia-class boats”, he said.

Regarding Block VI submarines, Kastner said, “We're in discussions with the government relative to negotiation of that block. I expect that to resolve this year. With this macroeconomic environment, we [must consider] inflation and supply-chain insurance. We have all that risk protected.”