General Dynamics won a $249 million contract on Thursday for modernization work on the USS Bonhomme Richard, the amphibious assault ship undergoing upgrades to carry the new F-35 fighter jet.
The work, which will be performed in San Diego, is expected to be completed by 2020, the U.S. Defense Department said in a statement. The Bonhomme Richard, commissioned in August 1998, was stationed near Japan for six years, where its missions included helping rescuers after the Korean ferry MV Sewol capsized in 2014.
Improvements to the vessel come as President Trump works to upgrade U.S. military capabilities more broadly. A two-year agreement ratified by lawmakers in March raised the cap for defense spending to $700 billion for fiscal 2018, which ends Sept. 30, and to $716 billion for 2019.
“For the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union, we are experiencing a return to great power competition,” Adm. John Richardson, the chief of naval operations, told the House Appropriations Committee this spring.
“With a rising China and a resurgent Russia, the U.S. does not enjoy a monopoly on sea power or sea control,” Richardson said. “There can be no doubt that stability and economic prosperity both here in the United States and around the world are inherently linked to freedom of movement and security on, below, and above the world’s oceans.”
The Navy’s Wasp-class vessels like the Bonhomme Richard are a key part of its maritime security force. Resembling a small aircraft carrier, they can transport Marines to shore via both helicopter and landing craft, according to the Navy.
The ships have been used in military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as humanitarian efforts after a 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean that devastated the coasts of Indonesia and Sri Lanka.
After its upgrade is completed, the Bonhomme Richard can carry the F-35B, a variant of the Lockheed Martin fighter capable of short takeoffs from ships near front-line combat zones and vertical landings.
