USS Portland (LPD-27)

USS Portland (LPD-27) is a San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship of the United States Navy, named after the U.S. city of Portland, Oregon.

History
Portland's keel was laid down on 2 August 2013, at the Ingalls Shipbuilding yard in Pascagoula, Mississippi. The ship's sponsor is Bonnie Amos, wife of U.S. Marine Corps Commandant General James F. Amos. Portland was launched on 13 February 2016, and she was delivered to the Navy on 18 September 2017. She was commissioned on 14 December 2017, but her commissioning ceremony was not held until 21 April 2018, when she was in the city of Portland for the festivities. The commissioning ceremony was protested by a number of local anti-war groups, who opposed a warship being named after the city.

Laser weapon system
A next-generation follow-on to the AN/SEQ-3 Laser Weapon System (LaWS) was slated for integration onto Portland as a technology demonstration after the decommissioning of USS Ponce (LPD-15), which carried the LaWS before it, and was installed at the end of 2018. In May 2020, USS Portland successfully destroyed an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with the solid-state laser, Technology Maturation Laser Weapon System Demonstrator (LWSD) MK 2 MOD 0 with a power level of 150 kW. On December 14, 2021, the LaWS successfully destroyed a marine target floating in the Gulf of Aden.

2022
On 27-30 May, Portland and USS Essex (LHD-2) were open to the public as a part of Los Angeles Fleet Week 2022, in San Pedro, California.

Spacecraft recoveries
Portland was assigned as the recovery ship for the Orion capsule of the Artemis 1 uncrewed Moon-orbiting mission, successfully completed on 11 December 2022. The spacecraft's floating Orion capsule was pulled into the flooded well deck at the stern of the vessel off the coast of Baja California.