SECNAV Braithwaite Names First FFG(X) USS Constellation - USNI News

The Navy will name the first of its new class of frigates USS Constellation (FFG-62), in a nod to one of the original six frigates the Navy bought to fight in the Revolutionary War.

Navy Secretary Kenneth Braithwaite announced today that the first FFG(X) guided-missile frigate would be named Constellation, making the announcement from the second ship to bear that name: USS Constellation, a sloop-of-war launched in 1854 and decommissioned in 1933 that is preserved as a National Historic Landmark in Baltimore, Md.

Four U.S. Navy ships have born this name in the past: a 38-gun frigate launched in 1797 and scrapped in 1853; the sloop-of-war that spent much of the Civil War operating in the Mediterranean; USS Constellation (CC-2), a battlecruiser laid down in 1920 that was cancelled in 1923; and USS Constellation (CV-64), a Kitty Hawk-class aircraft carrier that served from 1961 to 2003.