PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY/AP) — One of the nation’s aircraft carriers will spend the next two years in dry dock for some maintenance and state-of-the-art upgrades.
On Thursday, the USS George H.W. Bush arrived at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, where it’ll spend the next 28 months. During that period the carrier will upgraded with 3D printing technology.
It will also get exoskeleton suits and training models using virtual reality.
The Bush was commissioned at Naval Station Norfolk in January 2009, and is the last of the previous generation of aircraft carriers in the Nimitz class.
The Bush, along with thousands of sailors in its namesake strike group, returned from a seven-month deployment in August 2017.
The newest generation is the Ford class, which includes the already-commissioned USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier.