As prime contractor for the LPD 17 program, Litton Avondale leads a team comprised of General Dynamics, Bath Iron Works, Raytheon Electronic Systems and Intergraph Corporation. In addition to design work begun for the new class in 1997, Avondale has already constructed a series of pilot ship sections to demonstrate the maturity of the design and efficient production processes.

To date, four ships have been awarded in the 12-ship program with the eight additional ships planned in the next four to five years. The first ship in the new class will be delivered in late 2003. Value of the four ships awarded to date is in excess of $2 billion. Eight of the ships will be built at Litton Avondale in New Orleans, while four are currently planned for production at Bath Iron Works.

"In this program, the Litton Avondale Alliance and the Navy are achieving unprecedented levels of design completion before start of production," said Tom Kitchen, President of Litton Avondale. "With this concept, the Navy and Avondale have completed over 70 percent of the LPD 17 design - an unprecedented design completion for a ship program of this magnitude."

"This program is of vital importance to the Navy and Marine Corps," said Jerry St. Pe', Chief Operating Officer of Litton Ship Systems and Executive Vice President of Litton Industries. "The partnership between the Navy and Avondale and other team members in this program is resulting in revolutionary front-end design solutions to reduce the life-cycle operating cost of this new class of ships by billions of dollars."

The LPD 17 Amphibious Transport Dock Ships are designed to be 208.4 meters (684 feet) long and 31.9 meters (105 feet) wide and will be the functional replacement for the LPD 4, LSD36, LKA 113, and LDT 1179 Classes of Amphibious ships. The ship's mission is to embark, transport, and land elements of a landing force in an assault by helicopters, landing craft, and amphibious vehicles to conduct an amphibious warfare mission.

Litton Ship Systems (LSS), headquartered in Pascagoula, Mississippi, includes Litton Avondale Industries, located in New Orleans, Louisiana, as well as Litton Ingalls Shipbuilding and the Litton Ship Systems Full Service Center, both located in Pascagoula. LSS, which currently employs more than 17,000 shipbuilding professionals, primarily in Mississippi and Louisiana, is one of the nation's leading full service systems companies for the design, engineering, construction, and life cycle support of major surface ships for the U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard and international navies, and for commercial vessels of all types. LSS has a firm business backlog exceeding $5.6 billion, in a variety of naval and commercial shipbuilding programs.