U.S. Navy to Commission New Flight III Aegis Destroyer USS Ted Stevens for Advanced Air and Missile Defense.

The U.S. Navy will add a new Flight III Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer to its fleet when the future USS Ted Stevens (DDG 128) is commissioned on October 3, 2026, in Whittier, Alaska. Its entry into service will increase the Navy’s capacity for integrated air and missile defense as ballistic, cruise, and potentially hypersonic weapons pose growing threats to U.S. naval forces.

USS Ted Stevens combines the AN/SPY-6 radar with an upgraded combat system designed to detect, track, and engage increasingly complex missile threats. The destroyer will strengthen protection for carrier strike groups and forward-deployed forces while expanding U.S. naval air and missile defense capacity in high-end combat.

Related Topic: Inside U.S. Navy Flight III Arleigh Burke Destroyer and Its Unmatched Capabilities.

The future USS Ted Stevens (DDG 128), a Flight III Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, arrives at Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, on May 15, 2026. The U.S. Navy will commission the SPY-6-equipped destroyer on October 3, 2026, in Whittier, Alaska. (U.S. Navy photo)

The U.S. Navy announced the commissioning date on August 28, 2026, after Ted Stevens, a Flight III Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, had already been delivered by Huntington Ingalls Industries and arrived at its future homeport of Naval Station Norfolk in May. Its entry into commissioned service is particularly significant because Flight III represents the largest capability upgrade yet introduced into the long-running DDG 51 program.

USS Ted Stevens will become one of the U.S. Navy's relatively small but growing force of Flight III destroyers built around the AN/SPY-6(V)1 Air and Missile Defense Radar and Aegis Baseline 10 combat system. Unlike incremental improvements in earlier Arleigh Burke variants, Flight III was designed primarily to meet the requirement to conduct more demanding integrated air and missile defense missions against simultaneous and increasingly difficult threats.

That distinction matters as the U.S. Navy prepares its surface force for operations against adversaries capable of combining aircraft, anti-ship cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and unmanned aerial vehicles in coordinated attacks. A Flight III destroyer can contribute both to the defense of a carrier strike group and to wider-area missile defense while retaining the anti-submarine, surface warfare and long-range strike roles that make the Arleigh Burke class the backbone of the U.S. surface fleet.

The central improvement is the AN/SPY-6(V)1 radar, which replaces the AN/SPY-1D(V) radar installed aboard Flight IIA destroyers. The new S-band active electronically scanned array uses four fixed faces, each containing 37 Radar Modular Assemblies, providing 360-degree coverage and substantially greater sensitivity for long-range detection, discrimination and tracking.

The U.S. Navy rates SPY-6(V)1 at SPY+16 dB sensitivity, representing a major increase over the radar fitted to earlier Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. The improvement is designed to address capability gaps in both ballistic missile defense and conventional air defense as potential adversaries field faster, lower-observable and more maneuverable weapons.

Operationally, the greater radar sensitivity gives the combat system more opportunity to detect difficult targets earlier, maintain tracks in cluttered or electronically contested environments and provide higher-quality data for missile engagements. Digital beamforming and gallium-nitride semiconductor technology also improve rapid search and tracking against ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles and emerging high-speed threats.

Flight III combines the SPY-6(V)1 radar with Aegis Baseline 10, allowing the destroyer to conduct air warfare and ballistic missile defense concurrently with substantially greater efficiency. This simultaneous air and missile defense capability is one of the principal reasons the U.S. Navy developed Flight III, particularly as carrier strike groups and other naval formations face saturation attacks involving threats arriving at different speeds, altitudes, and trajectories.

The increased radar and combat-system performance required substantial changes below deck. Flight III replaces the earlier three 3-megawatt, 450-volt ship-service gas turbine generators with three 4-megawatt, 4,160-volt units, providing significantly more electrical generation capacity to support SPY-6 and its associated electronics.

Cooling capacity was also increased from five 200-ton air-conditioning plants to five 350-ton units. These modifications show how extensively the existing Arleigh Burke-class design had to be adapted to meet the additional electrical and thermal demands of Flight III sensors and combat systems.

These changes distinguish Flight III from the preceding Flight IIA configuration, even though the two variants retain the same basic hull family and much of the established DDG 51 weapon architecture. Flight IIA introduced two helicopter hangars and supports two MH-60R helicopters while retaining the Mk 41 Vertical Launching System, Mk 45 5-inch gun, Standard family surface-to-air missiles, Tomahawk land-attack missiles, Vertical Launch ASROC and torpedoes.

Flight III preserves those multi-mission capabilities but substantially increases the destroyer's ability to sense, classify and manage complex air and missile battles. The principal improvement is therefore not simply additional firepower, but a significant increase in the quality, range and volume of sensor information available to commanders.

USS Ted Stevens consequently does not simply add another missile magazine to the U.S. Navy. Its principal value is the additional high-end sensor and command capacity it can provide to carrier strike groups, surface action groups and joint forces operating inside increasingly contested missile environments.

That capability is particularly relevant in the Indo-Pacific, where long-range anti-ship cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, unmanned systems and increasingly sophisticated targeting networks have become central elements of regional military competition. Flight III destroyers give the U.S. Navy additional capacity to establish defensive coverage around high-value ships while contributing sensor data to the wider joint force.

The capability becomes increasingly important as the U.S. Navy gradually retires its remaining Ticonderoga-class cruisers and shifts more air-defense responsibility onto Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. A Flight III destroyer equipped with SPY-6 and Aegis Baseline 10 can assume a greater share of the surveillance, threat discrimination and engagement-management workload required to protect multiple ships across a large battlespace.

The enhanced detection and tracking capacity also gives commanders more time to decide which interceptor to assign to an incoming threat. The destroyer's 96-cell Mk 41 Vertical Launching System can accommodate combinations of Standard Missile family interceptors, Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles, Tomahawk land-attack missiles and Vertical Launch ASROC weapons.

This allows the ship's missile loadout to be tailored for fleet air defense, ballistic missile defense, offensive strike or anti-submarine warfare. Combined with SPY-6, the Mk 41 system gives Flight III destroyers the ability to detect threats at greater distances and employ different weapons according to the type and trajectory of the incoming target.

This combination of powerful radar coverage and a large missile magazine is especially relevant to defending carrier strike groups and other high-value forces from saturation attacks. Earlier warning and improved track quality do not increase the physical number of interceptors available, but they can improve how efficiently those missiles are employed by supporting engagement sequencing and reducing uncertainty.

Ted Stevens also adds capacity to a destroyer force already carrying a large proportion of the U.S. Navy's day-to-day combat workload. Arleigh Burke-class ships routinely provide carrier escort, forward presence, ballistic missile defense, anti-submarine warfare and land-attack capability, making the class the principal surface combatant of the U.S. fleet.

As of August 29, 2026, the U.S. Navy has 75 commissioned Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers in active service. USS John Basilone (DDG 122), commissioned in November 2024, became the 74th ship of the class, while USS Harvey C. Barnum Jr. (DDG 124) entered commissioned service on April 11, 2026, bringing the active total to 75.

That figure should be distinguished from destroyers already delivered to the U.S. Navy but still in pre-commissioning status. The future USS Patrick Gallagher (DDG 127), the final Flight IIA destroyer, was delivered on May 28, 2026, while Ted Stevens has also been delivered but will not enter commissioned service until October 3.

The commissioning of USS Ted Stevens would therefore raise the active Arleigh Burke-class force to 76 destroyers if no other DDG 51 enters commissioned service beforehand. This growing force includes multiple generations of the class, ranging from early Flight I and Flight II ships to Flight IIA and the new Flight III configuration.

Flight I encompasses the earliest DDG 51 ships, followed by Flight II and the much larger Flight IIA production run. Flight III began with later hulls incorporating the SPY-6(V)1 radar, Aegis Baseline 10, and extensive electrical, cooling, and structural changes necessary to support the new combat-system architecture.

Additional Flight III destroyers are under construction or contract at Huntington Ingalls Industries' Ingalls Shipbuilding and General Dynamics Bath Iron Works. Continuing production at both shipyards gives the U.S. Navy a sustained pipeline of high-end surface combatants while preserving the specialized industrial base required to construct large guided-missile destroyers.

The continued procurement is therefore also an industrial strategy. Maintaining production at both major destroyer shipyards sustains skilled labor, suppliers, and production infrastructure while providing the U.S. Navy with a steady flow of ships incorporating SPY-6 and other modern systems.

The commissioning in Whittier adds an additional strategic dimension to the event. The ship is named for former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, a World War II Army Air Corps pilot and longtime supporter of U.S. defense programs, while the U.S. Navy has emphasized Alaska's role in protecting northern maritime approaches and Arctic sea lanes.

The U.S. Navy conducts high-latitude maritime security patrols, cold-weather warfare training and joint exercises in the region as strategic competition increasingly extends into the Arctic. Commissioning the destroyer in Alaska therefore connects the ship's namesake with a region whose military importance is increasing as Russia and other powers devote greater attention to northern maritime routes.

Following commissioning, USS Ted Stevens will be homeported at Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia. Its principal contribution will extend well beyond adding another hull to the Atlantic Fleet because Flight III gives the U.S. Navy another destroyer capable of combining long-range surveillance, ballistic missile defense, fleet air defense and offensive strike capability within a single heavily armed warship.

For the U.S. Navy, that is DDG 128's central operational value. As missile speed, maneuverability and attack density increase, fleet survivability increasingly depends on detecting threats sooner, resolving more tracks simultaneously and coordinating defensive weapons before an attack reaches its terminal phase.

USS Ted Stevens brings another SPY-6-equipped Flight III destroyer into that architecture. Its commissioning will strengthen the U.S. Navy's capacity to protect carrier strike groups, defend joint forces, and maintain sea control in missile-intensive operating environments likely to define future high-end naval warfare.

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Written by Alain Servaes – Chief Editor, Army Recognition Group
Alain Servaes is a former infantry non-commissioned officer and the founder of Army Recognition. With over 20 years in defense journalism, he provides expert analysis on military equipment, NATO operations, and the global defense industry.