Event Brief
CBO: USS Gerald R. Ford costs $13.3B to procure
By The BriefBrief · Sources (1)
Filed: Sep 27, 2026 at 11:00 AM ET
Summary: The Congressional Budget Office estimates the final procurement cost for the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) at $13.3 billion, excluding about $6 billion in research and development costs for the whole class. The article also says Ford’s construction began in 2008, with keel laid in November 2009 and christening in November 2013, reaching initial operational capability in December 2021 and first deployment in October 2022.
WHO: Congressional Budget Office
WHAT: Final procurement cost estimate for the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) and timeline to operational service.
WHEN: Sep 2026
WHERE: USA
WHY: To provide cost and schedule context for the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier program and correct claims about how quickly it became operational.
How this brief is built: The BriefBrief uses multi-source information fusion to correlate reporting across sources, identify related developments, and continuously update a structured WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE and WHY event picture. Pattern arcs, source analysis, and velocity indicators provide deeper analysis in our MI Console.
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