Hypersonic-armed stealth destroyer nears sea trials

The U.S. Navy is paying Huntington Ingalls Industries another $99.1 million to take USS Lyndon B. Johnson (DDG 1002), the last of its three angular Zumwalt-class stealth destroyers, through sea trials as the ship is fitted to carry hypersonic missiles. The contract modification, announced by the U.S. Department of War, raises the ceiling on an existing Ingalls Shipbuilding contract to cover the destroyer’s sea trials. About 95% of the work will take place at the company’s shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi, with completion scheduled for October 2028, and the U.S. Navy obligated about $59.3 million at signing, split between fiscal 2025 and fiscal 2026 shipbuilding funds. During sea trials, a new or heavily modified warship leaves the yard to run its propulsion, steering, combat systems and other equipment at sea before the U.S. Navy accepts it. For Lyndon B. Johnson, they will follow years of work in Pascagoula to turn the ship into one of the first U.S. warships able to fire Conventional Prompt Strike, a hypersonic missile designed to reach targets thousands of kilometers away at more than five times the speed of sound. The Zumwalt class was originally designed around two 155 mm Advanced Gun Systems meant to bombard targets ashore, but the U.S. Navy canceled the guns’ special long-range shells in 2016 after costs soared, leaving the destroyers with guns they could not use, and later decided to remove them and give the three ships a new strike mission with hypersonic missiles. General Dynamics Bath Iron Works in Maine built Lyndon B. Johnson, which was christened in April 2019 by the late president’s daughters, before moving to Ingalls for combat system activation. In January 2025 the ship entered dry dock in Pascagoula to start installing the large missile tubes for Conventional Prompt Strike, and the U.S. Navy said at the time that it planned to commission the destroyer in 2027. The lead ship, USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000), went through the same conversion first. Ingalls replaced its forward gun with four large-diameter tubes that each hold three hypersonic missiles, giving the ship 12 in total, and Zumwalt completed builder’s sea trials in January 2026 after nearly three years in the yard, HII said. The second ship, USS Michael Monsoor (DDG 1001), is set to receive the same missile system during a future yard period. Conventional Prompt Strike shares its hypersonic glide body with the U.S. Army’s Dark Eagle long-range hypersonic weapon, which the U.S. Army fields on truck-mounted launchers. The missile boosts its warhead to high speed and altitude, then releases a glide vehicle that maneuvers toward the target, making it harder for air and missile defenses to intercept. Lockheed Martin, the program’s prime contractor, received a $1.36 billion contract modification earlier this year to support missile and launcher production for the system. Ingalls is due to finish Lyndon B. Johnson’s sea trials and related work by October 2028, which would make it the second Zumwalt-class destroyer to go to sea with hypersonic missile tubes.