Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) announced on October 13 that the US Navy awarded its Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS) division a $56 million contract for engineering and design work in support of shipbuilding under the AUKUS partnership.
If exercised, the contract option would raise its cumulative value to $91 million.
As part of the contract's foreign military sales (FMS) component, NNS will continue its support for the UK and Australia.
This will cover technology insertion and engineering, as well as supply-chain and workforce-development assistance and digital transformation.
Under a separate United States industry support (USIS) strand, NNS engineers and designers will have a role in designing the SSN-AUKUS nuclear-powered attack submarine.
Under the March 2023 pathway, the first UK SSN-AUKUS is scheduled for delivery in the late 2030s and the first Australian-built example in the early 2040s.
HII said the award adds to its other AUKUS work. Its mission technologies division in Australia runs the Australian submarine supplier qualification programme, which qualifies Australian suppliers for the US submarine industrial base. HII also received the Australian Submarine Agency's nuclear capability advisory services contract in December 2025.
NNS separately contracted Babcock in 2025 to manufacture complex assemblies for Virginia-class submarines at Rosyth.
