(CNN) — President Donald Trump has directed the US Navy to scrap the modern electromagnetic launch system on an upcoming aircraft carrier and instead revert to an older, steam-powered catapult method — potentially adding billions to its price tag and delaying its deployment into the late 2030s.
The directive, outlined in a White House memo and fact sheet released Thursday, orders Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to submit a plan within 60 days to install the catapult systems on on a carrier being built that is slated to take on the name the USS Doris Miller.
While the White House argues the move will “fix critical long-term issues,” naval experts tell CNN the sudden shift is highly unusual.
The newest US aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, was built with an electromagnetic launching system known as EMALS. However, the US Navy’s 10 older carriers, the Nimitz class, still rely on steam-powered catapults.
Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, added that the move would require the USS Doris Miller, which is already under construction, to be redesigned. The cost of that, he told CNN, “will probably be into the billions” and it could delay the carrier — which was expected to be in service around 2034 — “until the end of the next decade.”
The electromagnetic system is similar to a high-speed rail train, making it “a lot simpler,” according to Clark. Meanwhile, the steam catapult has a lot more parts, such as valves, pressure regulators and pistons, he said.
“The electromagnetic ones have proven themselves to be easier to operate and less expensive in terms of personnel and maintenance. So the Navy has saved $100 million a year on the Ford class carrier,” Clark said.
When reached for comment, a White House spokesperson directed CNN to the fact sheet, which argues that the memorandum aims to “fix critical long-term issues in Navy shipbuilding and ship repair programs.”
Chris Cavas, a veteran journalist and the host of a podcast on naval issues who said he’s been on launches that have used EMALS and steam catapult, argued that the memo “is very old thinking, very outdated.”
“I can tell you firsthand, you can feel the difference and the difference is that it’s smoother,” Cavas said of the electromagnetic system. “It’s much less stress on the aircraft.”
Cavas and Clark also said that the Navy now faces the logistical issue of finding a manufacturer of steam catapults. Cavas told CNN that while EMALS are contracted, the Navy used to build steam catapults itself.
“They haven’t had to make new steam catapults since the George H. W. Bush,” Cavas said, referring to the aircraft carrier that entered service in 2009. “That’s a long time ago and all that infrastructure is gone.”
Similarly, Clark said, “Nobody builds them anymore. There’s no steam catapult manufacturers in the … US anymore so they’d have to restart that production line, which would cost tens of millions of dollars to get going and that’ll be, it’ll take years to start that up again and build the first catapult.”
The USS Doris Miller’s delay, along with the retirements of carriers in the Nimitz class, could mean the US Navy will “be very short on carrying capacity” next decade, Clark added.
Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, a retired Navy captain, criticized the memo in a post on X on Thursday, saying, “I’ve launched off the front of aircraft carriers hundreds of times, have a Master’s degree in aeronautical engineering, and am a test pilot and even I wouldn’t suggest to the Navy how to engineer specific systems on its ships.”
“Donald Trump should stick to what he knows best — ballrooms, bankruptcy, and bullshit,” he added.
CNN has reached out to General Atomics — which made EMALS for the USS Gerald Ford and was set to do the same for the USS Doris Miller — for comment.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.