The only ship of her class, Enterprise was the third oldest commissioned vessel in the United States Navy after the wooden-hulled USS Constitution and USS Pueblo. She was originally scheduled for decommissioning in 2014 or 2015, depending on the life of her reactors and completion of her replacement, USS Gerald R. Ford,but the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 slated the ship's retirement for 2013, when she would have served for 51 consecutive years, longer than any other U.S. aircraft carrier.
Enterprise's home port was Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia as of September 2012. Her final deployment, the last before her decommissioning, began on 10 March 2012 and ended 4 November 2012. She was inactivated on 1 December 2012, with her official decommissioning taking place sometime after the completion of an extensive terminal offload program currently underway. The name has been adopted by the future Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CVN-80).
Enterprise is a commissioned navy ship, but is inactive. She has undergone enough of the four-year long inactivation process to render her unfit for further service. Inactivation removes fuel, fluids, furnishings, tools, fittings, and oil and de-energizes the electrical system. Enterprise has already been cut open to allow the removal of useable systems.
She was decommissioned in 1970, and sold for scrap in 1974.