Shasta's keel was laid down 10 November 1969 at the Ingalls shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi, sponsored by Mrs. Ralph W. Cousins, wife of the Vice Chief of Naval Operations.

It featured three 600 psi (4.1 MPa) Foster-Wheeler water-tube boilers driving only one General Electric geared steam turbine connected to one six-bladed fixed-pitch propeller while having a prominent bulbous bow.

After fitting out, the newly commissioned Shasta departed Charleston on 22 May 1972 for her shakedown cruise and training at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

After completing shakedown and training on 10 June, she headed for the Pacific, where her new homeport was to be the Naval Weapons Station in Concord, California.

Along the way, she made port visits to Kingston, Jamaica; Cartagena, Colombia; Panama City, Canal Zone; and Acapulco, Mexico.

Shasta supported the Kitty Hawk battle group in the North Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman off the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz.

The ship and her crew made port calls at Mombasa, Kenya, Subic Bay Naval Base, and Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and conducted airhead operations at al-Masirah, Oman.

[citation needed] Shasta deployed to the Western Pacific and Indian Oceans 14 July to 30 December 1987,[3] including three months in the North Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in support of Operation Earnest Will, with Battle Group Echo, formed around the Ranger (CV-61), and the Missouri (BB-63) surface action group under the command of Joint Task Force Middle East (now United States Naval Forces Central Command).

Other ships in this combined task force included Long Beach (CGN-9), Bunker Hill (CG-52), Gridley (DLG-21), John Young (DD-973), Leftwich (DD-984), Buchanan (DDG-14), Hoel (DDG-13), Robert E. Peary (FF-1073), Harold E. Holt (FF-1074), Curts (FFG-38), Reuben James (FFG-57), Wichita (AOR-1), Kansas City (AOR-3) and Hassayampa (AO-145).

Also during this deployment, Shasta made port visits at Lualualei in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; Subic Bay, Luzon, Philippines (two); Singapore; Diego Garcia, British Indian Ocean Territories; Pattaya, Thailand; and Hong Kong.

During the deployment, en route from Thailand to Hong Kong, Shasta sailed through a super typhoon in the South China Sea, sustaining damage, but never reducing her operational capacity.

Shasta crossed the Equator in the Indian Ocean en route to Diego Garcia and held a line-crossing ceremony and initiated the shellbacks into the solemn mysteries of the Ancient Order of the Deep.

In 1988, Shasta supported drug smuggling interdiction operations off Baja California, and conducted a "show the flag" port visit in Mazatlán, Mexico.

When Shasta arrived in Hong Kong, the crew learned that the Berlin Wall had fallen, one of the final episodes of the Cold War.

While Shasta was deployed, its home port, the San Francisco Bay Area was hit by the Loma Prieta earthquake, which affected the families of many crew members.

In early 1990, Shasta underwent a major shipyard overhaul on the San Francisco waterfront, and conducted sea trials in May 1990.