About $2.81B to Austal USA — a thirteen-year shipbuilding contract whose description says only construction of an LCS Flight 0+ ship (Navy)
A definitive contract awarded by the Navy to Austal USA. The description reads construction of a Littoral Combat Ship Flight 0+ ship. Obligations total about $2,808.33 million and outlays about $266.71 million, a ratio of 9.5 percent. The period runs from 2017-06-23 to 2030-09-30, beyond thirteen years.
Contract key facts
- RecipientAUSTAL USA, LLC
- Contract value$2,808,329,949 (≈$2.81B)
- BranchNavy
- Awarding agencyDepartment of Defense
- Awarding sub-agencyDepartment of the Navy
- Award typeDEFINITIVE CONTRACT
- Period of performance2017-06-23 〜 2030-09-30
- Contract ID (PIID)N0002417C2301
Contract scope (original)
CONSTRUCTION OF LCS FLIGHT 0+ SHIP
Key points
- The description is the single line construction of an LCS Flight 0+ ship, denoting a littoral combat ship build.
- Obligations are about $2,808.33 million and outlays about $266.71 million, a ratio of 9.5 percent.
- The period runs from 2017-06-23 to 2030-09-30, beyond thirteen years, matching the length of a shipbuilding sequence.
- Of the 207 Department of Defense contracts this site holds as of 2026-08-31, 77 were awarded by the Navy, the largest share.
- Those 207 are not every Department of Defense contract but a collection weighted toward the large ones.
- By service, the 207 records held as of 2026-08-31 run Navy 77, department-wide 59, Army 40 and Air Force 31.
1A single line that still says what is being bought
The description here is one line: construction of an LCS Flight 0+ ship. Short as it is, what is being procured can be read from it. LCS stands for Littoral Combat Ship, and Flight is the term for a design generation within one class of ship.
Unlike a record holding only a work-category marker, this one line names the object of the procurement. Of the 207 Department of Defense contracts this site holds as of 2026-08-31, 41 have a description of twenty characters or fewer, but brevity and information do not always go together.
2Building a ship makes for a long contract
The period runs from 2017-06-23 to 2030-09-30, beyond thirteen years. Shipbuilding proceeds through design, material procurement, hull assembly, outfitting and trials, so the contract period stretches to match.
Obligations are about $2,808.33 million and outlays about $266.71 million, a ratio of 9.5 percent. Across the 207 Department of Defense contracts this site holds as of 2026-08-31, total outlays are 1.0 percent of total obligations, so this contract sits above that.
3The Navy is the largest awarding side
Splitting the 207 Department of Defense contracts this site holds as of 2026-08-31 by service gives the Navy 77, department-wide organisations 59, the Army 40 and the Air Force 31. Ships and submarines run to large sums per award and to long periods.
That Navy records predominate also reflects this site collecting the larger awards first. The relative counts by area cannot be read directly as the shape of budget allocation. The accurate reading is that this list is not every Department of Defense contract but a collection weighted toward the large ones.
Why it matters
Shipbuilding differs markedly from other procurement in how the period and the payments run. Money does not move at once; obligations and outlays accumulate at different rates along a long sequence of work. Gauging a yard from outside is closer to the reality when the contract period and the outlay ratio are read together rather than a single year of spending.
FAQ
What is an LCS?
Why does the period run thirteen years?
Why are there so many Navy contracts?
Sources (primary)
This article is an independent organization based on the U.S. official spending data below. Verify the exact, latest details with the official source.
- USAspending (award details)
- Contract ID (PIID)：N0002417C2301