MARINETE, Wis. - The Navy and Lockheed Martin held a keel laying ceremony for the future USS Detroit, the Navy's seventh littoral combat ship (LCS), Nov. 8, in Marinette, Wis.

The keel laying ceremony recognizes the first joining together of a ship's components. While modern shipbuilding processes allow fabrication of individual modules to begin months earlier, keel laying represents the formal beginning of a ship.

"I'm proud to stand with the highly skilled tradespeople of northern Wisconsin and Michigan as they start construction on the seventh LCS," said Rear Adm. Jim Murdoch, program executive officer for Littoral Combat Ships (PEO LCS). "Through their tireless labor, we are achieving the stable serial production the Navy needs to deliver high quality ships to the Fleet on cost and on schedule, and to reach our goal of a 55-ship class."

Ship sponsor Barbara Halpern-Levin, wife of U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, authenticated the keel by having her initials welded into a sheet of the ship's steel.

The LCS is a new breed of U.S. Navy warship, capable of open-ocean operation but optimized for littoral, or coastal, missions. The Navy remains committed to a 55-ship LCS program and leverages competition, fixed-price contracting and serial production to reduce construction duration and costs. Lessons learned from the lead ships have been incorporated in the follow on ships as part of their baseline, and subsequent change activity has been minimized.

Detroit is expected to deliver to the fleet in 2015.

PEO LCS is responsible for delivering and sustaining credible littoral mission capabilities to the fleet and is working with industry to achieve steady production to increase production efficiencies and leverage cost savings. Delivering high-quality warfighting assets while balancing affordability and capability are key to supporting the Navy's Maritime Strategy.

For more information on how NAVSEA shipbuilding, visit: http://www.navsea.navy.mil/OnWatch/shipbuilding6.html

-NAVSEA-