Minnesota was laid down on 20 May 2011, and christened on 27 October 2012 in a ceremony attended by many top ranking officials in the U.S. Navy and Congress.[1][6][7]
On 6 June 2013, Huntington Ingalls Industries announced that Minnesota had been delivered to the Navy, nearly 11 months ahead of schedule.[8][9]Minnesota was commissioned on 7 September 2013.
After commissioning, Minnesota remained at the General Dynamics Electric Boat shipyards in Groton, CT for over two years. A broken pipe joint was discovered in the vessel's nuclear reactor. The pipe had been tampered with in order to make the part appear within specifications.[10][11] Although a failure of the pipe would not result in a reactor incident, it would affect the reactor's ability to produce steam used for propulsion.[11] The same issue has been discovered on two other boats in the class. A Navy investigation determined that two other ships had the same issue, and the U.S. Justice Department commenced an investigation of the contractor responsible for the defective parts.[10][11]
^ abcRagheb, Magdi (9 September 2011), Tsvetkov, Pavel (ed.), "Nuclear Naval Propulsion", Nuclear Power - Deployment, Operation and Sustainability, ISBN978-953-307-474-0
This article includes information collected from the Naval Vessel Register, which, as a U.S. government publication, is in the public domain. The entry can be found here.
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