Capt. James Kirk just got the keys to the baddest ship in the fleet -- U.S. Navy's fleet, not Starfleet.
The ship is the future USS Zumwalt, the first of the Navy's newest class of destroyers, and contractor General Dynamics turned it over to the Navy on Friday at Bath Iron Works in Maine.
The ship will be commissioned -- and officially become the USS Zumwalt -- on October 15 in Baltimore. Until then, Capt. Kirk (U.S. Navy, not United Federation of Planets) and his crew will test the ship's array of futuristic systems.
The 610-foot, 15,700-ton warship "is a stealthy ship with a minimal radar signature and an intrinsically quiet tumblehome hull form and wave-piercing bow," General Dynamics says.
The ship can generate 78 megawatts of power making it "suitable for deployment of directed energy beam weapons and the electromagnetic railgun, both of which are under intensive development," General Dynamics said in a statement.
"This impressive ship incorporates a new design alongside the integration of sophisticated new technologies that will lead the Navy into the next generation of capabilities," said the Navy's program manager for the Zumwalt class of destroyers, Rear Adm. (select) Jim Downey.
For now, the future Zumwalt will be equipped with guns that can fire projectiles up to 63 miles and cells for 80 Tomahawk, Sea Sparrow and Standard missiles along with anti-submarine rockets.
Two more Zumwalt-class ships, the future Michael Monsoor and Lyndon B. Johnson, are under construction in Maine. Cost of the three ships is expected to total about $22.5 billion.