Lockheed Martin’s Stealth Ship
Lockheed Martin’s Sea Shadow
The Sea Shadow (IX-529) was an experimental ship built by Lockheed Martin in the 1980s to test the stealth technology used on the F-117 Nighthawk for possible use on submarines.
“In the early 1980s, the vessel was built modularly under tight secrecy by different manufacturers and assembled inside the Hughes Mining Barge (HMB), at Redwood City, Calif.,” according to a 2003 Navy news release.
“There, the HMB would be moved out to sea in the dead of night and halfway submerged, to let Sea Shadow out to be tested without being overly exposed to public observation.”
The Hughes Mining Barge was developed in tandem with the ship
Glomar Explorer as part of Project Azorian.
The sharp angles of
Sea Shadow made the ship appear smaller on radar and informed not only the design of the deckhouse of the Arleigh Burke destroyer but the ship of the antagonist in the 1997 James Bond film,
Tomorrow Never Dies.
The ship was based in San Diego, Calif. for years before the ship was sold for scrap in 2012.