President Trump has directed the Navy to abandon the electromagnetic launch system built into its newest aircraft carriers, ordering the Secretary of War to draft a plan reverting to steam catapults under a national security presidential memorandum signed Aug. 13, 2026.
Background
The memorandum, titled "Rebuilding the United States Navy and America's Shipbuilding Industrial Base," targets the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, or EMALS, and the Advanced Weapons Elevators developed for the Ford-class carrier program. Both systems replaced the steam-driven catapults and cable-hoist elevators that powered every prior U.S. carrier class, part of a shift toward all-electric shipboard power that began with lead ship USS Gerald R. Ford.
Section 2 of the memorandum orders the Secretary of War to submit, within 60 days of signing, a plan on the required measures to replace EMALS and the Advanced Weapons Elevators with steam and hydraulic systems. The plan must route through the Director of the Office of Management and Budget and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs before reaching the President's desk, putting a decision point roughly in mid-October 2026.
The order applies to CVN-81, the future USS Doris Miller, the fourth Ford-class carrier and the first named for an enlisted sailor, honoring a Pearl Harbor Navy Cross recipient. The memorandum names only CVN-81; the first three ships in the class, USS Gerald R. Ford, USS John F. Kennedy and USS Enterprise, are not addressed in the order. Only the fourth hull, still in early construction with its keel-laying not yet complete, is targeted for the propulsion and launch-system reversal.
Key Details
Doris Miller's total estimated procurement cost is $15.2 billion under the FY2026 budget submission, according to Janes, citing a Congressional Research Service report. The ship's keel-laying is planned for later in 2026, with delivery anticipated in February 2034, meaning the redesign question must be resolved before the hull's most consequential structural milestone.
General Atomics, the prime contractor for both EMALS and the Advanced Weapons Elevators, has warned against the switch. The company said that with "nearly 50% of production complete, changing course now would introduce significant cost, schedule, and integration risks," according to Breaking Defense. That figure describes the electromagnetic launch and elevator hardware itself, not the ship's hull, which has not yet reached keel-laying — but it still implies a large share of the EMALS and elevator equipment for Doris Miller has already been fabricated or is in active production, raising the question of what happens to components built for a system the ship may no longer carry.
Outside analysis published alongside the order underscores the scale of the engineering challenge. Bryan Clark of the Hudson Institute noted the Navy has not purchased a steam catapult in more than 20 years and that Ford-class ships are architected around electric power for functions well beyond launching aircraft, including cooking, heating and water purification. Reverting a single hull to steam would require re-engineering systems that were never designed to coexist with catapult boilers, feedwater systems and the associated piping runs that steam propulsion demands.
No domestic steam-catapult production line currently exists. Breaking Defense reported that because the Navy has not bought a steam catapult in more than 20 years, it is unlikely legacy suppliers could resume production without substantial up-front investment and time to reestablish qualified manufacturing lines. Standing up new steam-catapult manufacturing and qualifying it for a Ford-derived hull would itself be a multiyear undertaking layered on top of Doris Miller's existing construction schedule, independent of any hull-integration work.
The memorandum does not specify how the Navy should reconcile a steam-catapult reversion with a hull design engineered around electromagnetic infrastructure from the outset, leaving that question to the 60-day plan due at the President's desk by mid-October 2026.
What It Means for Contractors
General Atomics has the most immediate exposure. The company holds the EMALS and Advanced Weapons Elevator contracts for CVN-81 and has already committed significant production toward systems the memorandum could partially unwind. Its public warning about cost, schedule and integration risk signals the company will push back during the 60-day planning process rather than accept a quiet redesign, and it sets up a public record the company can point to if a later termination-for-convenience or descoping decision follows.
Huntington Ingalls Industries, which builds the Ford class at Newport News Shipbuilding, faces a parallel problem: a change to Doris Miller's launch and elevator architecture this far into system production ripples into hull design, cabling runs and compartment layouts that have been engineered around electromagnetic infrastructure since early in the ship's design. A steam conversion at this stage is not a drop-in swap of one system for another; it touches structural and mechanical elements throughout the ship, and any schedule slip on CVN-81 could pressure the broader Ford-class delivery cadence that follows it.
Companies that once supplied steam catapult components, boiler systems, high-pressure piping, cable-and-shuttle hardware, could see renewed government interest if the Navy determines a domestic production line needs to be reestablished. That would represent new business for firms currently outside the carrier supply chain, though building qualified steam-catapult manufacturing from a standing start would take years, not months, and would likely require new Navy investment in supplier qualification and testing infrastructure that does not exist today.
Subcontractors tied to EMALS and the elevator program should watch the 60-day plan closely. If the Navy's submission recommends proceeding with a steam conversion on Doris Miller, follow-on contract modifications, requests for proposals on steam hardware, and potential termination or restructuring of existing EMALS-related task orders could follow within the current fiscal year. Firms with existing Ford-class subcontracts should prepare cost and schedule impact assessments now, since the memorandum's compressed timeline leaves little room for extended negotiation once the plan reaches the President.
The broader shipbuilding industrial base implicated by the same memorandum, including separate provisions ordering plans for a fifth public shipyard and a submarine component repair center, signals continued White House attention to Navy production capacity. Contractors across the surface and submarine fleets should expect additional presidential directives on shipbuilding policy in the months ahead, and should treat the Doris Miller propulsion question as one piece of a wider push to reshape how the Navy builds and maintains its fleet.
