Anna Forrester
Lockheed Martin and its industry partners has launched the latest littoral combat ship for the U.S. Navy at the Marinette Marine shipyard along the Menominee River in Wisconsin.
Lockheed said Saturday Barbara Levin, wife of Sen. Carl Levin, led the christening ceremony for LCS 7 or the future USS Detroit as the ship’s sponsor.
Dale Bennett, executive vice president of Lockheed Martin’s mission systems and training business, said the industry team designed the ships to help bolster the Navy’s “forward presence” and enable mission-based modifications.
LCS 7 will move forward to the outfitting and testing phase of the program ahead of the scheduled 2015 delivery to the Navy, the company said.
Lockheed partnered with Marinette Marine and Gibbs & Cox to build the Freedom-variant LCS vessels.
The team has already delivered USS Freedom (LCS 1) and USS Fort Worth (LCS 3) and is due to deliver USS Milwaukee (LCS 5) also in 2015, Lockheed said.
