The USS Enterprise is to be dismantled in Mobile, Ala.
The U.S. Department of Defense has awarded NorthStar Group Services subsidiary NorthStar Maritime Dismantlement Services a firm-fixed-price contract worth $536,749,731 for the dismantling, recycling, and disposal of the historic USS Enterprise (now also known as the ex-Enterprise), the world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. The work will be performed in Mobile, Ala., and is expected to be completed by November 2029.
First launched on September 24, 1960, the Enterprise was inactivated in December 2012 and was officially decommissioned in February 2017, when it was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register. The aircraft carrier was named an American Nuclear Society Nuclear Historic Landmark in December 2021 during that year’s ANS Winter Conference and Expo in Washington, D.C.
According to the DOD, under the contract, the Enterprise will be dismantled in its entirety, and all resulting materials will be recycled or disposed of. Specifically, hazardous materials, including low-level radioactive waste, will be packaged and transported for disposal at authorized licensed sites.
The contract was competitively procured via the Procurement Integrated Enterprise Environment solicitation module, with three offers received, according to the DOD.
D&D team: In November 2024, NorthStar announced that it was working with Modern American Recycling Services (MARS) to pursue work dismantling and disposing of decommissioned U.S. Navy nuclear aircraft carriers, including the USS Enterprise.
At the time, NorthStar said its Maritime Dismantlement Services team matched the company’s extensive experience decommissioning nuclear power facilities with the MARS’s ship recycling and decommissioning specialists, working together at MARS’s high-capacity deepwater facility at the Port of Mobile, Ala.
NorthStar is currently leading the decontamination and decommissioning of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, along with Duke Energy’s Crystal River-3 nuclear power plant in Florida and the GE Vallecitos Nuclear Center in California.
