Aries was laid down on 7 January 1980 at Renton, Seattle, Washington, by Boeing Integrated Defense Systems, launched on 5 November 1981, sponsored by Mrs. Earl B. Fowler, the wife of Vice Admiral Earl B. Fowler, Commander, Naval Sea Systems Command, and was commissioned at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard on 18 September 1982.

Acceptance trials came late in January 1983, and, in February, she carried out her first law enforcement operation against drug smugglers in cooperation with the Coast Guard.

March and April brought training duty out of Key West and two more missions assisting the Coast Guard in its efforts to stem the flow of illegal drugs into the United States.

Halfway through June, the guided-missile hydrofoil gunboat returned to Key West and resumed a normal schedule of duty out of her home port.

Though the bulk of her operations for the rest of the year consisted of routine training evolutions, tests, and equipment calibrations and checks, Aries participated in another anti-smuggling sweep during the second week in August and visited Nassau in the Bahamas later that month.

In February 1984, the warship expanded her sphere of operations to include the Gulf of Mexico and the east coast of Central America.

On 11 June, however, she departed Key West for the waters around Puerto Rico to participate in the initial phase of UNITAS XXV, the 1984 edition of the annual series of multilateral exercises carried out with units of various Latin American navies.

At that time, she embarked upon a cruise that took her to the Caribbean for another UNITAS exercise during which she made port calls at La Guaira, Venezuela, and at St. Johns, Antigua.

On 14 October, the guided-missile hydrofoil gunboat set sail for Little Creek, Virginia, to take part in a special project for the Chief of Naval Operations.