The contract to build her was awarded to the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics Corporation in Groton, Connecticut on 10 December 1973 and her keel was laid down on 8 May 1980.

[1] Three weeks after commissioning Portsmouth began her first mission, supporting rescue operations in Grenada.

[3] In 1985 Portsmouth commenced her first Western Pacific operations that included port-calls in Japan and Australia and became the first American nuclear-powered warship to visit Fiji.

Years later she became the first to make a liberty call to communist Chinese reunified Hong Kong.

She entered the Ship-Submarine Recycling Program at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington.