US Navy’s USS Pasadena Nuclear Submarine Back in Action After Overhaul

USS Pasadena (SSN-752), the U.S. Navy’s Los Angeles class submarine named after the City of Pasadena, has returned to the fleet after successfully completing Drydocking Selected Restricted Availability (DSRA) at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia.

The submarine returned to the fleet on October 31, according to a Norfolk Naval Shipyard statement.

USS Pasadena served as the shipyard’s pilot project leveraging the Naval Sustainment System-Shipyards program, which is underway at all four public shipyards: Norfolk, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility, and the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility.

During the overhaul, Navy leaders such as Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Harker visited the Norfolk shipyard and met with the USS Pasadena team to pledge their support and discuss the program and its objective to “get real, get better” encouraging shipyarders to candidly discuss any constraints so they can be resolved.

USS Pasadena’s DSRA is the Norfolk Shipyard’s first DSRA in a decade, the U.S. Navy said. The submarine spent just 12 months at the shipyard to replace, repair and overhaul components on the boat.

“Following a tremendous amount of effort and teaming on a very challenging availability, Pasadena has returned to the fleet to meet its significant operational commitment for our navy and nation,” U.S. Navy Captain Dianna Wolfson, the shipyard commander, said.

Beyond the improvements through the shipyard program, USS Pasadena’s team incorporated lessons learned from USS Newport News’s (SSN 750) DSRA at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in planning the availability and executing similar jobs.

The USS Pasadena, also known as SSN 752, was commissioned in 1989 and is the third vessel and first submarine named Pasadena in the United States Navy.

Its missions include primarily anti-submarine warfare and strike warfare and is home to 123 enlisted sailors and 14 officers while at sea—a timeline that can reach up to ten months per deployment.

The vessel has unlimited endurance due to its nuclear propulsion plant, the most advanced sonar, torpedo, cruise missile, and mine delivery systems, the best combination of speed and stealth due to quieting and the capacity to fulfill numerous missions because of the versatility of the ship with its highly trained and dedicated crew, according to the USS Pasadena website.