The U.S. Navy has wrapped up a series of acceptance trials on its future USS Paul Ignatius destroyer ship built by Huntington Ingalls Industries.
The Arleigh Burke-class vessel spent two days in the Gulf of Mexico before it returned to an HII shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., Naval Sea Systems Command said Friday.
The Navy’s Board of Inspection and Survey collected data from at-sea demonstrations to assess the quality of construction and as well as the ship’s compliance with the military service’s requirements.
Casey Moton, DDG 51 class program manager at the Navy, said the ship conducted a Standard Missile-2 shoot in previous builder’s trials that demonstrated the readiness of an Aegis weapon system onboard the vessel.
HII is scheduled to deliver USS Paul Ignatius to the service branch in early 2019.