The contract to build her was awarded on 18 December 1998 to Northrop Grumman Ship Systems of New Orleans, Louisiana, and her keel was laid down on 14 October 2002.

[3] After proving herself mission ready and fully recovered from 2009's collision with USS Hartford, New Orleans took part in Exercise Dawn Blitz.

From June through September, New Orleans deployed for the Southern Partnership Station 2010 to conduct combined maritime operations with Partner Nation navies in conjunction with multinational amphibious exercises.

During her 2010 deployment, New Orleans conducted counter narcotics operations and made port visits to Manzillo, Mexico; Callao, Peru; and Balboa, Panama.

New Orleans crew dutifully represented the U.S. by upholding high standards of conduct and community service, and embarked members of the Mexican, Peruvian, Argentinean, Brazilian, Colombian, and Uruguay Navies were impressed by the professionalism and capability of the U.S. military.

During the final days of the Certification Exercise (CERTEX), an MV-22 assigned to USS Boxer suffered a mishap on short approach to New Orleans during a routine passenger movement.

The first stop on deployment was in Hawaii where New Orleans conducted four days of amphibious operations bringing thousands of Marines to the beach via MV-22 Ospreys and landing craft air cushions (LCAC) for extensive sustainment training.

[7] On 16 June 2016, Boxer ARG took part in Operation Inherent Resolve; AV-8BII Harriers of the 13th MEU began airstrikes against ISIL in Iraq and Syria.

[8] On 29 June 2016, New Orleans hit a major milestone in the deployment as she anchored off the coast of Camp Buehring, Kuwait to offload nearly 1,000 tons of vehicles and machinery for an agricultural wash down, before returning to Manama, Bahrain for mid-deployment maintenance.

The visit included several receptions, daily ship tours, sports events with Sri Lankan and US Navy/Marine Corps personnel, and HADR training held by embarked Marines.

The crew and hundreds of contractors went through an extensive list of repairs and upgrades to the ship's hull, tanks, ventilation, auxiliary, propulsion, and combat systems.

The exercise was three weeks long of fast-paced amphibious operations where New Orleans launched and recovered multiple LCACs, AAVs, and LCUs off of San Clemente and Camp Pendleton beaches as well as MV-22 Ospreys.

[9] New Orleans became the first San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship to successfully complete a "stern gate marriage" with an Army logistics support vessel (LSV) while moored in Pearl Harbor on 24 October 2019.

The successful marriage demonstrates just one more method by which the San Antonio-class can support a myriad of potential missions from humanitarian aid and disaster relief to amphibious assault.

New Orleans joined the U.S. 7th Fleet amphibious force in Sasebo, 1 November 2019, transiting the Pacific Ocean from her former homeport of San Diego.