USS Massachusetts (SSN-798), is a nuclear powered attack submarine currently being built for the United States Navy. She is the 25th submarine of the class, and is named for the U.S. state of Massachusetts—the eighth such vessel.
SSN-798 was part of a $17.6 billion contract awarded by the U.S. Navy to prime contractor General Dynamics Electric Boat to construct 10 Virginia-class submarines.[1] Ray Mabus, then Secretary of the Navy, announced the name Massachusetts on 8 November 2015 in an opinion piece for The Boston Globe.[2] She is the first vessel to be named after the Commonwealth since the battleship was decommissioned in 1947.[3]
Her keel was laid 11 December 2020 at Newport News Shipbuilding, in a virtual ceremony due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She was christened by ship sponsor Sheryl Sandberg on 6 May 2023. In November 2023, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro advised that Boston would be the site of the vessel's commissioning, scheduled for the spring of 2025.[4]