On 26 February 2009, the Norwegian government decided to deploy HNoMS Fridtjof Nansen to the Gulf of Aden, thereby participating in the ongoing Operation Atalanta, the European Union's counter-piracy campaign in Somalia.

During the exercise, she used a Naval Strike Missile to sink the USS Ogden (LPD-5), a decommissioned U.S. Navy amphibious transport dock, as a target 55 nautical miles northwest of Hawaii on 10 July 2014.

[5] From September 2021 to May 2022, Fridtjof Nansen was fully integrated with the US Navy's Carrier Strike Group 8 (CSG-8) as part of the USN's Cooperative Deployment Program.

The Nansen arrived at Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia in September 2021 [6] and underwent extensive training, testing and certification before deploying with the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) and the rest of the strike group in December 2021.

The strike group was originally planned to transit the Suez Canal in early February for a cruise through the Middle East and Persian Gulf regions, but in light of the tensions surrounding the ongoing standoff between Russia and Ukraine, they were ordered to remain in the Mediterranean until further notice.