Bath Iron Works has been awarded a Navy contract for engineering and design analysis for the DDG(X), a guided-missile destroyer that represents the U.S. Navy’s next generation of large surface combat ships.

The contract work is part of an industry-wide effort to design and produce the ships. Virginia-based Huntington Ingalls Industries, whose Mississippi shipyard also builds the Arleigh Burke destroyers that BIW has been building for years, was awarded a similar contract Friday.

BIW said that if all the options in the contract are exercised, it will run through July 2028. The specific value of the contracts was not made public for competitive reasons, the company, which is owned by General Dynamics, said in a statement.

“Bath Iron Works is eager to bring our cutting-edge engineering and design expertise, now applied to the DDG-51 program, to the next generation of large surface combatants,” Bath Iron Works President Chuck Krugh said in the statement. “The opportunity to work alongside HII and our industry partners to meet the Navy’s needs for capability, schedule and cost will result in synergies that build on other extremely successful Navy construction programs.”

BIW said similar approaches for the DDG-51 and two submarine programs have shown that industry involvement and collaboration can make them more successful. BIW and Huntington Ingalls have been working on the DDG(X) program for more than a year to help refine the ship’s concept, the company said.

Bath Iron Works is Maine’s largest manufacturer and builds, maintains and modernizes surface combat ships for the Navy.