Latest Updates on the U.S. Constellation-class Frigates Program

IRIA Staff - January 18, 2022

The first three of the U.S. Navy’s Constellation-class ships have been revealed by names and specifications. The Constellation-class frigates program manager Captain Kevin Smith provided the latest updates on the program. The first three ships of the class would be called Constellation (FFG-62), Congress (FFG-63), and Chesapeake (FFG-64).

The contract to build two of the three ships was awarded to the Fincantieri Marinette Marine shipbuilding company in April 2020. Building the third ship of this class, the USS Chesapeake, is an option that would be considered under the budget limitation for the Fiscal Year 2022.

During a presentation about the new class of ships, Captain Kevin Smith highlighted that the Constellation-class project is focused on building frigates and not destroyers, which means the frigates would not carry heavy loads of weaponry. However, he mentioned that Constellation-class frigates would have the ability to perform small-scale escort missions in order to relieve some destroyers from these missions.

According to Captain Kevin Smith, the Constellation-class frigates are aimed to work as an Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Platform. “That’s why ASW is listed first among the missions [of the ship, followed by] surface warfare, electromagnetic maneuver warfare, and air warfare. In a lot of ways, it is like a DDG, it just doesn’t have all the magazine capacity, it doesn’t have all the armament you would expect of a DDG,” Capt. Smith said.

“It’s an agile multi-mission platform, just like a DDG, and it’s going to be dual purpose: For things like escort missions for high-value units, it’s going to take a lot of the work off of the DDGs and the cruisers out there today and really focus on, if anybody here is Old Navy, what did the frigates do? They did a lot of escort missions, you know, high-value unit protection, those kinds of things. They can also steam independently, they can steam integrated with a task force, it could be a SAG (surface action group) or they could go out and do things with respect to the high value and escort.” Smith added.


Construction Updates:

Fincantieri Marinette Marine released detailed design and specification updates on the Constellation-class frigates. The shipbuilding company would be working only on the ship’s primary components such as its baseline AEGIS combat abilities, its electric infrastructural design, and piping and fire-safety design.

Following is the expected construction milestone timeline until the first Constellation-class frigate sets for the sail.




Specification and Details:

Constellation-class ships would set a new milestone for the multifunctional naval platforms. Captain Smith provided the details about the specification of the Constellation-class ships by highlighting that the Constellation-class Ships project is being developed under the perspective of FREMM, which is a concept based on multi-purpose frigates, initially developed and mastered by Fincantieri and Naval Group. The FREMM concept has been successfully implemented by many navies from around the world including Italian and French Naval Forces. The Ships built under the FREMM model have certain specifications that enable them to carry out both ASW operation as well as escort missions.

“From a FREMM perspective discounting c4I, and discounting the combat system weapons that are all government-furnished equipment. The FREMM came along with hull accommodations that came along with the propulsion, plant layout, mechanical systems, electrical systems, and a physical integrated plant. They had to lengthen the hull a little bit. The architecture for the propulsion is very similar to FREMM, but we also have US systems, and we have different redundancy and different reliability,” Captain Smith said.


Constellation-class ships’ main characteristics and armaments details:


IRIA infographic of the Constellation-class frigates specifications


PMS 515 program manager also disclosed details about Land Based Engineering and Test Site (LBES) issues, which helps in the risk reduction of propulsion architecture, and operation and control. Captain Smith noted that FFG 62 LBES activities started in the Fiscal Year 2021 to support initial operational capability (IOC) for the class planned in FY2029. The U.S. Navy is set to start procurement of long-lead time plant components and test equipment in the second quarter of FY2022.



An infographic showing the Constellation-class frigates' weapons and sensors (Screenshot from the presentation slides via Navalnews)

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