The Navy plans to outsource more of its aircraft carriers’ intensive midlife maintenance in a bid to use sailors’ time wisely and make them happier at work.

Contractors will take on menial tasks like painting, insulating and transportation that sailors have traditionally handled during the yearslong process, known as a refueling and complex overhaul (RCOH). The USS Harry S. Truman will be the first carrier refurbished under the new approach starting later this year.

In the meantime, the Navy will consider moving members of the Truman’s crew to other jobs that “align to why they joined,” service spokeswoman Colleen O’Rourke said in an email. It also plans to send troops out to sea for training.

An “optimized, smaller crew” will remain assigned to the carrier as it enters dry dock, the service added in a recent release.

“This shift is about putting our sailors’ time and talents where they matter most,” Vice Adm. Scott Gray, who leads a Navy team focused on quality of service, said in the June 15 release.

The midlife overhaul encompasses about one-third of the repairs and upgrades a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier needs over the course of its 50-year lifespan, according to shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries. Newport News Shipbuilding, a division of HII, built each of the 10 Nimitz-class carriers now cycling through RCOH.

While Newport News manages the bulk of the overhauls, which involve highly technical labor like replacing the carrier’s spent nuclear fuel and installing new combat systems, the Navy will tap other firms to handle the less-specialized work.

The multiyear effort is critical to keeping a carrier afloat for another quarter-century, but shipyard duty can be grueling and stressful for troops. Though sailors can return home to their families each night, they shoulder tasks unrelated to their regular roles amid extreme temperatures in a massive construction zone. Many say they’d prefer another deployment to a stint in RCOH.

To address those woes, the Navy began testing outsourcing options during the recent USS George Washington and John C. Stennis overhauls. The service believes it could save “up to 1 million man-hours” across the Truman’s crew of around 3,000 people.

“Ultimately, this transition is expected to streamline maintenance processes, fostering a more sustainable and effective workforce balance between active-duty personnel and the shipyard’s industrial base,” the Navy said in its release.

The Navy said it has already spent about $32 million across five contracts to outsource tasks previously performed by sailors, but did not provide specifics. Another five contracts are still in the works.

O’Rourke declined to answer how much the Truman’s RCOH could cost overall, citing ongoing contract negotiations.

RCOH contracts are lucrative deals: In 2021, the Navy awarded Newport News Shipbuilding a $2.9 billion agreement to handle the midlife overhaul of the Stennis. Subsequent add-ons have boosted that total above $3 billion.

The Truman returned to Norfolk Naval Station in June 2025 following an eight-month deployment that included a lengthy bombing campaign against Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels. Its strike group also pelted Somalia’s Islamic State militants with 124,000 pounds of ordnance in what the Navy called the largest airstrike ever launched from an aircraft carrier.

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