Huntington Ingalls Industries’ (HII) Ingalls Shipbuilding has selected the Eastern Shipbuilding Group (ESG) of Panama City, Florida, to fabricate six structural modules for the future US Navy San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock (LPD) USS Philadelphia, ESG said on Wednesday, November 4.
ESG's Florida Gulf Coast facilities are producing the modules. They are scheduled to reach Ingalls Shipbuilding's Pascagoula, Mississippi, yard in the third and fourth quarters of 2027.
The modules will then become part of the ship's final assembly.
ESG said the agreement supports Ingalls Shipbuilding's strategy of assigning selected modular fabrication to partner facilities to increase throughput and allow parallel construction.
ESG Chief Executive and Chairman Joey D'Isernia said the company was ready to deliver the modules on schedule in 2027.
HII extended distributed construction to LPDs in July, beginning with the future Philadelphia. By then, awards to two partners covered eight structural units, and production was in its early stages.
"By shifting selected structural units to trusted partners, just as we've successfully done in the flight III destroyer program, we're enabling more parallel construction and freeing our Ingalls team to focus on the complex assembly and integration work that only a major shipyard can perform," Ingalls Shipbuilding President Brian Blanchette said at the time.
Fabrication of Philadelphia began in January 2025, and her keel was authenticated at Pascagoula in March 2026. At that time, she was one of three San Antonio-class flight II ships under construction at Ingalls, the others being USS Harrisburg and USS Pittsburgh.