The US Navy commissioned the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Ted Stevens during a ceremony in Whittier, Alaska, on Saturday, October 3.
The ship, which will be based at Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia, is a flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, having been equipped with the AN/SPY-6(V)1 air and missile defence radar and the Aegis Baseline 10 combat system. The navy said the flight III upgrade, centred on the SPY-6 radar, enables the destroyer to be used for anti-air warfare as well as ballistic missile defence.
Other missions include anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, and strike warfare using the Mk 41 vertical launching system.
The late Ted Stevens, the ship’s namesake, represented Alaska in the US Senate from December 1968 to January 2009. He was also a US Army Air Corps pilot who flew transport missions in the China-Burma-India theatre during World War II.
Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Ingalls Shipbuilding division built Stevens at its Pascagoula yard in Mississippi.
The destroyer completed acceptance trials in late 2025 under the oversight of the navy’s Board of Inspection and Survey, following builder’s sea trials earlier that year.
The navy accepted delivery of the destroyer on December 29, 2025. The destroyer departed Ingalls Shipbuilding on May 8, 2026, and arrived at Norfolk seven days later.
Before commissioning, the ship sailed from Norfolk to Florida and then continued to Alaska via the Panama Canal. The navy said she will return to its permanent homeport following post-commissioning operations.
