The U.S. Navy has awarded HII Newport News Shipbuilding a contract worth $5,099,973,132 for the refueling and complex overhaul (RCOH) of nuclear aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75). The contract includes options that, if exercised, would bring the total value to $5.18 billion. All work must be completed by November 2031.
The RCOH is the only deep overhaul scheduled throughout a carrier’s entire operational life, coinciding with the midpoint of its service cycle. In the case of the Truman — launched in 1996 and delivered to the Navy in 1998 — this has been a long-anticipated milestone. At the heart of the operation is the refueling of the ship’s two Westinghouse A4W pressurized water reactors: they must be shut down, brought to the required temperature, opened, and reloaded with fresh fuel. The reactors power steam turbines connected to the propeller shafts, enabling speeds in excess of 30 knots and a range of more than three million miles between refueling cycles. Without this overhaul, the carrier would be unable to complete the second half of its operational life.
The scope of work extends well beyond the reactors. The Newport News shipyard will work on thousands of compartments and tanks, upgrade propulsion and combat systems, and address nearly every system on board. In practice, this amounts to a comprehensive reconstruction of the ship from the inside out. The Truman has been docked for maintenance since returning from its last operational deployment in June 2025. It will be the eighth Nimitz-class carrier to undergo this type of overhaul at the Virginia shipyard.
The path to this contract began in January 2024, when HII received an initial advanced planning contract worth $913 million. That preparatory work — covering engineering, design, material procurement, and pre-overhaul inspections — was set to conclude in 2026, laying the groundwork for the actual start of the RCOH. The timeline has been met. According to HII, a key figure underscores the scale of the effort: the RCOH accounts for approximately 35% of all maintenance and modernization work carried out over a carrier’s fifty-year service life — one-third of the ship’s entire maintenance history concentrated into a single intervention.
The Truman’s story has not been without political drama. In 2019, the Pentagon proposed canceling the overhaul and retiring the ship early in order to fund two new Gerald R. Ford-class carriers. Congress rejected the proposal. Today, with the contract signed, that debate is firmly closed. When the Truman emerges from Newport News — expected around 2031 — it will be a renewed vessel, with fresh reactors and upgraded systems, ready for another twenty-five years of active service with the U.S. fleet.
