  
Northrop Grumman Ship Systems, and its Ingalls Operations, have a proven record of success in surface ship fleet support, overhaul, repair
and reactivation.
In November 2000, Ingalls was selected to restore the
Aegis destroyer USS COLE (DDG 67), which arrived at Ingalls on December
13. Ingalls built USS COLE, which was delivered to the Navy in 1996.
Ingalls restored USS COLE in its modern 640-acre facility on the west bank of the Pascagoula River, a facility built in the late 1960s specifically for the type of modular design and construction work that the COLE project will require.
In announcing USS COLE’s return to Ingalls, the U.S. Navy called
its selection of Ingalls for this project, "the best solution for
this unique and demanding situation." The Navy said Ingalls is
"most able to effectively manage and complete the work in a timely
fashion. Some aspects of the damage remain unknown and will present
challenging engineering problems during the repair. The land-level
facility at Ingalls provides greater flexibility to deal with major
structural damage."
Ingalls has the unique capability of placing the ship back on-land for the repair. Ingalls removed damaged sections of the ship, fabricated huge new ship sections in other areas of the shipyard, then installed the new sections aboard ship. The USS Cole was redelivered to the Navy April 19, 2002.
Ingalls performed similar repair work on the battle-damaged USS STARK
(FFG 31), in 1988.
Since 1985, Ingalls has completed nearly two dozen such projects,
ranging from the overhaul and modernization of DD 963 Class destroyers and other surface
ships, to the reactivation, modernization and restoration of existing surface combatants.
Ingalls returned to service the World War II IOWA Class battleships USS IOWA (BB 61) and
USS WISCONSIN (BB 64) in 1984 and 1988, respectively. Continuing
this reputation, Ingalls was awarded in November 1994 a contract to convert the
Ingalls-built amphibious assault ship USS INCHON (LPH 12) for its new mission as a mine
countermeasures command, control and support ship (MCS 12). The ship rejoined the fleet in
May 1996.
In addition to overhaul work, NGSS maintains its reputation in life cycle fleet support through Full Service Operations Surface Combatant Planning Yard, which maintains on-site teams strategically located throughout the world. This effort supports more than 60 advanced Navy surface combatants, and provides engineering design, planning, material kitting and other support for modernization, maintenance and upgrade, as well as support for advanced planning and execution of scheduled industrial work. Ingalls' Planning Yard Engineering personnel have performed more than 1,000 shipchecks and on-site inspections for more than 300 ship availabilities over the last 10 years. The work is done to support ship life cycle schedules and is normally completed in conjunction with U.S. Navy facilities along the coastal continental United States, as well as in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and Yokosuka, Japan.
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