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TOTE Services, LLC and Hanwha Philly Shipyard (HPSI) have been selected to deliver the Missile Defense Agency’s Missile Range Instrumentation Vessels (MRIV), giving the pair a new federal shipbuilding assignment tied to missile range support missions.
Under the arrangement, TOTE Services will act as vessel construction manager, while HPSI will build the ships at its Philadelphia yard. The new vessels are set to replace the Pacific Tracker and Pacific Collector, which were built in 1965 and 1970 and currently support missile range instrumentation missions.
The project will be carried out through the existing vessel construction manager contract vehicle between MARAD and TOTE Services. According to the announcement, it will be executed as an interagency collaboration between the Department of Transportation, Department of War, and the Missile Defense Agency. The first MRIV is scheduled for delivery in 2030.
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TOTE Services and HPSI said they will use the same commercially managed vessel construction manager model already in use on the National Security Multi-Mission Vessel program for the U.S. Maritime Administration. That five-vessel program has delivered three ships so far. The fourth vessel, Lone Star State, was christened today and is expected to be delivered in the coming months, while the fifth and final ship is expected in mid-2027.
For the MRIV work, HPSI will use the hull form, production line, supply chain, and workforce already in place at the yard. The source article said the approach has shown stronger cost control, schedule performance, and execution on complex vessel classes.
The article also said the vessel construction manager model offers advantages over traditional government acquisition strategies, including reducing acquisition costs by at least 50%. It added that defining requirements upfront and quickly approving change orders helps accelerate delivery timelines and supports mission readiness at delivery.
The MRIV selection comes as the federal government increases its focus on rebuilding the U.S. maritime industrial base, with shipbuilding capacity identified in the source article as a major national security priority.
The article said the NSMV program helped transform Hanwha Philly Shipyard from a dormant yard with a few dozen workers into a shipyard employing more than 2,000 production workers. It said the MRIV award builds on that progress by bringing additional defense construction work to the yard and supporting its continued growth as U.S. shipbuilding capacity is rebuilt.
TOTE Services is also identified in the source article as the current ship manager and operator of the existing MARAD and MDA vessels, while HPSI is described as bringing the hull form, production line, and workforce used on the NSMV class. The article said the companies’ combined experience in vessel design, construction, mission-critical systems integration, and long-term readiness is intended to support continuity and reduce program risk from construction through operations.
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