Submarine Mississippi Completes First Voyage

GROTON, Conn. – The nation’s newest and most-advanced nuclear-pow­ered attack sub­ma­rine, Mis­sis­sip­pi (SSN-782), returned to the Elec­tric Boat ship­yard today fol­low­ing the suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of its first voy­age in open seas, called alpha sea tri­als. Mis­sis­sip­pi is the ninth ship of the Vir­ginia Class, the most-capa­ble class of attack sub­marines ever built. Elec­tric Boat is a whol­ly owned sub­sidiary of Gen­er­al Dynam­ics (NYSE: GD). 

Dur­ing the alpha sea tri­als, Mis­sis­sip­pi sub­merged for the first time and con­duct­ed high-speed runs on and under the sur­face to demon­strate that the submarine’s propul­sion plant is ful­ly mission-capable. 

The sea tri­als were con­duct­ed by Adm. Kirk­land Don­ald, direc­tor – Naval Nuclear Propul­sion. Also par­tic­i­pat­ing in the sea tri­als were Rear Adm. David John­son, pro­gram exec­u­tive offi­cer – Sub­marines; Rear Adm. Richard Breck­en­ridge, com­man­der – Sub­ma­rine Group Two; Rear Adm. (Select) Michael E. Jaba­ley, pro­gram man­ag­er – Vir­ginia-class Sub­ma­rine Pro­gram; Capt. Dar­lene Gras­dock, super­vi­sor of ship­build­ing in Gro­ton; Kevin J. Poitras, Elec­tric Boat senior vice pres­i­dent – Engi­neer­ing and Design Pro­grams; John Hol­man­der, Elec­tric Boat vice pres­i­dent – Vir­ginia Pro­gram; and Joseph A. Walsh, Elec­tric Boat vice pres­i­dent – Oper­a­tions. Mis­sis­sip­pi is com­mand­ed by Capt. John McGrath. 

Elec­tric Boat and its major sub­con­trac­tor, New­port News Ship­build­ing, have received con­tracts to build the first 18 sub­marines of a planned 30-ship Vir­ginia Class under a unique team­ing agreement. 

Vir­ginia-Class characteristics

Dis­place­ment: 7,835 tons
Length: 377 feet
Beam: 34 feet
Pay­load: 40 weapons; spe­cial oper­a­tions forces; unmanned under­sea vehi­cles
Weapons: Tom­a­hawk land-attack mis­siles; Mark 48 advanced capa­bil­i­ty tor­pe­does
Crew: 134 offi­cers and enlist­ed men 

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