The Virginia-class attack submarine New Jersey has returned to Newport News, Va., after several days at sea testing systems and components, Huntington Ingalls Industries announced Thursday.

Tests included submerging for the first time and conducting high-speed maneuvers on the surface and below.

“Taking New Jersey out for the first time is a significant milestone, and the first major test of the submarine’s capabilities at sea,” said Jason Ward, vice president of Virginia-class submarine construction for Newport News Shipbuilding. “Both New Jersey and her crew performed exceptionally well.”

New Jersey is expected to be delivered to the Navy later this year.

Though it is the 23rd sub in the Virginia class, it also is the first of its kind: Designed with female submariners in mind.

Women have been serving on submarines for more than a decade, but the New Jersey (SSN 796) is the first to be designed with specific modifications for gender integration.

Planned modifications included the obvious — more doors and washrooms to create separate sleeping and bathing areas — and the more subtle: lowering some overhead valves and making them easier to turn, and installing steps in front of the triple-high bunk beds and stacked laundry machines.

Before construction of New Jersey, the Navy retrofitted existing subs with extra doors and designated washrooms. 

“The future USS New Jersey will be a critical — some say the most critical — arrow in our quiver,” retired Navy Adm. Michael Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former chief of naval operations, said at the christening in November 2021.

Mullen was chairman of the Joint Chiefs in 2010 when then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Congress the Navy would begin including women in the submarine community.

As of October 2023, 609 women were assigned to operational submarines — serving as officers and sailors on 18 nuclear-powered ballistic-missile and guided-missile submarines and 14 nuclear-powered attack boats, according a report from the U.S. Naval Institute. 

The long-term plan is that by 2030, 33 submarine crews will have female officers and 14 crews will have female enlisted sailors. All classes of submarines will be integrated with female officers.

Designs for the next ballistic-missile sub, the Columbia class, will rely on body measurements for men and women. The first Columbia-class sub is scheduled to join the fleet in 2031.

Virginia-class submarines, a class of nuclear-powered fast attack submarines, are built for a broad spectrum of open-ocean and littoral missions to replace the Navy’s Los Angeles-class submarines as they are retired. Virginia-class submarines incorporate innovations that increase firepower, maneuverability and stealth. They are capable of supporting multiple mission areas and can operate at speeds of more than 25 knots for months at a time.

Contributing: The Associated Press