USNS John Glenn (T-MLP-2)

USNS John Glenn (T-MLP-2) is a United States Navy ship to be named in honor of John Glenn, a United States Marine Corps veteran of World War II and the Korean War, astronaut, and United States senator.

John Glenn's keel was laid down on 17 April 2012 at the National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO) shipyard in San Diego, California.

The Mobile Landing Platform is a new concept, part of the Maritime Prepositioning Force of the future. To control costs, the ships will not be built to combat vessel standards and are designed primarily to support three military hovercraft (such as the Landing Craft Air Cushion), vehicle staging with a sideport ramp and large mooring fenders. A decision was made to eliminate helicopter capability and ship-to-ship transfer of heavy equipment. The propulsion motors are of British design and build. Power conversion company Converteam was selected as the supplier of Integrated Power Systems with the award of an additional contract to design and supply the electric power, propulsion and vessel automation system.

An auxiliary support ship, John Glenn's role would be a seagoing pier for friendly forces in case accessibility to onshore bases are denied. Such flexibility would be useful following natural disasters and for supporting US Marines once they are ashore. The MLP in its basic form possesses a core capability set that supports a vehicle staging area, side port ramp, large mooring fenders and up to three landing craft air cushioned vessel lanes.

John Glenn is expected to be delivered in 2014 to the Military Sealift Command's Maritime Prepositioning Force. As an MLP, the ship is expected to come under the command of the United States Navy's Military Sealift Command, and thus will not be commissioned into the US Navy (hence her designation prefix, "USNS").