( CNN ) -- For the second time in two years , the U.S. Navy is parting with one of its aircraft carriers for a penny . The Navy announced Thursday it 's paying ESCO Marine of Brownsville , Texas , one cent to take the former USS Saratoga off its hands for dismantling and recycling . The warship was decommissioned in 1994 . It is now at Naval Station Newport in Rhode Island and is expected to be towed to Texas in the summer , the Navy said . The 56,000-ton Saratoga was commissioned in 1956 and saw action off North Vietnam in 1972 and 1973 . In 1985 , fighters from the Saratoga helped capture terrorists who hijacked the cruise ship Achille Lauro in the Mediterranean , forcing a jetliner carrying them to land at an air base in Sicily . The carrier was also part of Operation Desert Storm in 1991 and air operations over the Balkans in 1992 , 1993 and 1994 , according to Navy records . The Saratoga will follow the former USS Forrestal to dismantling in Texas . That ship was towed to All Star Metals of Brownsville earlier this year , with the Navy paying a penny to the ship recycler under a contract awarded last October . The recyclers make money from selling the metal they salvage from the warships . A third carrier , the former USS Constellation , is expected to meet a similar fate soon , according to a Navy statement .
The former USS Saratoga is to be recycled in Texas . The aircraft carrier served more than 38 years in the Navy . The former USS Forrestal was towed to Texas for recycling earlier this year .