~$4.5B for detail design and construction of carrier CVN 79 — a separate "construction preparation" contract for the same ship ran six years ahead (Huntington Ingalls)

1The stage called construction preparation

A ship the size of an aircraft carrier cannot be built in the order of finishing a design and then starting work. The heavy plate that forms the hull, the propulsion plant, and large castings and forgings take years between order and delivery. Beyond that, the dock and machine tools to assemble them, and the recruitment and training of the workforce, all have to move first.

Construction preparation is the stage at which that pre-build work is ordered as a package.

2Preparation running six years ahead

In our collected data the preparation contract was awarded in January 2009 and the detail design and construction contract in June 2015. Money was therefore flowing to the same company more than six years before the substantive build contract. The amounts are comparable too — about $4.52 billion for preparation and about $4.53 billion for detail design and construction, some $9.05 billion together.

Speaking of "the cost of building one carrier" through a single award value captures roughly half of what is actually there.

3What the record shows

Both are DEFINITIVE CONTRACT, and the periods of performance end on the same date, July 31, 2025. The ship's name, its planned commissioning, and construction progress are not in the recorded scope, and this site does not write beyond what is recorded.