Admiralty Shipyards has held a solemn ceremony for keel-laying of the Velykiye Luki , diesel-electric submarine of Project 677 Lada, the shipyard says in its press release.
The Velykiye Luki is the third ship in the series of Project 677 submarines being built by Admiralty Shipyards for RF Navy. Project 677 Lada is the forth generation of conventional submarines.
The construction of the second and the third submarines of Project 677 was resumed by Admiralty Shipyards in July 2013 and in late 2014 accordingly. The submarines were laid down in 2005 and in 2006 but in 2009 the construction of the submarines was suspended according to the decision of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation before handing over the lead submarine for trial operation.
A new contract signed by the Ministry of Defence provides the ship’s construction according to the corrected detailed design. The submarine designer of the Lada project — CDB ME “Rubin” — has carried out a lot of work on improvement of the submarine and development of the modernized systems for the ship. The serial ships will be equipped with the modernized prototypes of equipment, i. e. the integrated automated ship system, electric propulsion system and navigation system.
Admiralty Shipyards is the only shipyard in Russia to build ships of this class.
Admiralteiskie Verfi OJSC (Admiralty Shipyards) is a key enterprise of shipbuilding, a centre of conventional submarine building of Russia. The shipyard is affiliated with the United Shipbuilding Corporation OJSC. At the moment the shipyard facilities are fully engaged. A number of contracts are being successfully implemented at the shipyard for domestic and foreign customers. Three series of submarines for RF and foreign Navies are under construction now. Besides, the Igor Belousov rescue vessel with the deep-operating vehicle Bester-1 is under trials today. The Company’s staff numbers 6,700 persons.