USNS Alan Shepard
2006 Lewis and Clark-class dry cargo ship
USNS Alan Shepard (T-AKE-3) is a Lewis and Clark-class dry cargo ship in the United States Navy. She is named after the astronaut and Rear Admiral, Alan Shepard (1923–1998), the first American in space and the fifth person to walk on the Moon.
Service history
The contract to build her was awarded to National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO) of San Diego, on 16 July 2002. Construction began on 13 September 2005. She was launched on 6 December 2006, sponsored by Laura Churchley, daughter of RAdm. Shepard.
Alan Shepard entered active service in 2007. She was initially part of the Pacific Fleet.
During Exercise Pacific Vanguard in August 2022, Alan Shepard launched a BQM-177A target drone during live-fire practice with the guided-missile destroyer USS Barry and the Australian frigate HMAS Perth; this was the first time the drone was used in a training exercise. Both vessels launched missiles at the BWM-177A and successfully intercepted it.
The public source identifies “USNS Alan Shepard” as 2006 Lewis and Clark-class dry cargo ship. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around USNS, Alan and Shepard.
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This entry incorporates text from “USNS Alan Shepard” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.