Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS) division launched the future US Navy attack submarine USS Massachusetts (SSN-798) at its facilities in Virginia on Friday, February 23.

The future Massachusetts is the 25th Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarine and will be the 12th delivered by NNS, which is one of only two shipyards capable of designing and building nuclear-powered submarines for the US Navy.

As with its Virginia-class sisters, the submarine will be capable of operating in littoral and deep waters. Missions will include anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface ship warfare, strike warfare, special operations forces support, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), irregular warfare, and mine warfare.