US Navy Sends Ammunition Ship USNS Alan Shepard to Vigor Marine for $13.8M Mid-Term Maintenance

Military Sealift Command (MSC) has awarded Vigor Marine LLC a $13,789,573 firm-fixed-price contract for a 50-calendar-day mid-term availability on the dry cargo and ammunition ship USNS Alan Shepard (T-AKE 3), the Pentagon announced on November 9, 2026. Work will take place at Vigor’s Portland, Oregon, shipyard beginning December 1, 2026, with completion expected by January 19, 2027.

The contract, N3220527C0001, covers a base work package and three unexercised options for additional work and time that would raise its cumulative value to $14,147,535. MSC obligated the full award in fiscal 2027 operations and maintenance (Navy) funds, which expire at the end of the fiscal year on September 30, 2027. The contracting activity in Norfolk, Virginia, solicited proposals through the government-wide point of entry and received two offers. The work keeps one of 14 Lewis and Clark-class ships on the maintenance cycle that sustains the Navy’s Combat Logistics Force, the auxiliary fleet that rearms and resupplies carrier strike groups and amphibious forces at sea.

USNS Alan Shepard Mid-Term Availability: Scope and Schedule

MSC schedules mid-term availabilities between the larger regular overhaul and dry-docking periods that anchor each auxiliary’s maintenance cycle. The announcement does not define the base work package, and no work list has been published, so it remains unclear whether the period includes dry-docking. The options add $357,962, or about 2.6 percent, to the base award, which suggests MSC expects limited growth work.

Vigor has run this template on a sister ship. The yard completed a 50-calendar-day mid-term availability on USNS Washington Chambers (T-AKE 11) between January 10 and February 28, 2025, after a competition that drew three bidders. Washington Chambers later returned to Portland for a regular overhaul that Vigor completed in July 2026 and described as its largest T-AKE-class contract to date. That work covered hull and tank coating preservation, propulsion system inspections, electronics upgrades, and overhauls of underway replenishment (UNREP) equipment.

Alan Shepard arrives with a documented record in the Middle East. On July 15, 2023, the ship ran aground in Bahrain while moving from the ASRY shipyard in Al Hidd to Khalifa Bin Salman Port, where she was due to complete repairs to one of her marine diesel generators. A Naval Forces Central Command investigation found only minor paint scratches on the hull and no injuries. MSC has not disclosed the ship’s current assignment.

Lewis and Clark-Class Design: Integrated Electric Drive and Cargo Capacity

General Dynamics NASSCO built Alan Shepard in San Diego under a contract awarded July 16, 2002. The ship launched on December 6, 2006, and was delivered in June 2007. Publicly available specifications indicate a length of 689 feet, a beam of 106 feet, a draft of 30 feet, and a full-load displacement of about 41,000 tons.

The T-AKE was the Navy’s first full-size all-electric ship design. Four FM/MAN B&W 48/60 diesel generators deliver 35.7 megawatts on a 6.6-kilovolt integrated system that feeds both propulsion and ship service loads, turning a single fixed-pitch propeller for a design speed of 20 knots and a range of 14,000 nautical miles. Because the generators are the propulsion plant, their condition directly governs the ship’s ability to hold station alongside a carrier during replenishment.

Cargo capacity defines the class’s value. The Navy lists 6,675 tons of dry cargo, 1,716 tons of refrigerated stores, and 18,000 barrels of cargo fuel, about 63 percent more cargo than the Kilauea-class ammunition ships and Mars-class combat stores ships the T-AKEs replaced. Each side carries three dry-cargo and one liquid-cargo replenishment stations, and a flight deck and hangar support two helicopters for vertical replenishment. Civilian mariners crew the ship. At 19 years in service, Alan Shepard sits near the midpoint of the class’s projected 40-year service life.

Analysis: The award is small, but the bid count is the signal. Two offers is thin competition, and it fits a pattern at Vigor’s Swan Island yard, where recent MSC awards for the replenishment oiler USNS Henry J. Kaiser’s regular overhaul and USNS Guadalupe’s mid-term availability each drew a single offer. Kaiser’s 120-day overhaul is scheduled to begin in Portland on December 15, 2026, putting two Combat Logistics Force ships in the same yard over the holidays. With the West Coast private repair base for large auxiliaries this concentrated, schedule discipline in Portland translates directly into replenishment capacity for deployed combatants.

Alan Shepard is due in Portland by December 1, 2026. The markers to watch are whether MSC exercises any of the three options, which would signal growth work, and whether Vigor returns the ship by January 19, 2027, while carrying the Kaiser overhaul in parallel. MSC has not said where the ship will operate after the availability or when her next regular overhaul is due.