KINGSLAND, Ga. -- After a two-year, $1-billion overhaul, the Navy will mark the USS Georgia's return to service with a ceremony at Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in Kings Bay late next month.

Georgia is the last of four Ohio-class submarines be converted from a nuclear Ballistic Missile Submarine (SSBN) to a Guided Missile Submarine (SSGN) designation to provide a new conventional weapons platform.

The USS Florida returned to service at Kings Bay last May.

The Navy says the SSGN subs can provide a covert, quick response land attack/strike warfare force prior to establishing sea and air superiority. In addition to carrying conventional missiles, the subs can carry special ops forces for sustained, clandestine support from a mobile offshore platform.

Each of the converted submarines has the capability to launch up to 154 Tomahawk missiles, carry up to 66 special forces, and provide enhanced intelligence-gathering.

Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue will deliver the ceremony's principal address at a March 28 ceremony that will cap a week of return-to-service events meant to properly welcome the ship back to the fleet and to its home state of Georgia.

USS Georgia is currently the only Navy ship to be homeported in her namesake state.

Capt. Brian McIlvaine, a 1984 graduate of the United States Naval Academy, is the ship's commanding officer and leads a crew of approximately 164 officers and enlisted personnel.

Georgia is 560 feet long, with a 42 foot beam, 36 foot surface draft, and 18,700 ton submerged displacement.

The name Georgia first sailed onboard the confederate ironclad CSS Georgia to protect the city of Savannah. A shell from CSS Georgia sails onboard USS Georgia today.

The first USS Georgia (BB-15) was a 441 foot, 15,000 ton battleship which served from 1906 to 1920 and cruised around the world as part of President Theodore Roosevelt's "Great White Fleet" from 1907 to 1909.