A new Navy ship goes on a shakedown cruise. Merriam-Webster defines a shakedown as “a testing under operating conditions of something new (such as a ship) for possible faults and defects and for familiarizing the operators with it.”
The Navy then schedules time to fix what the test found. Its maintenance manual defines a Post Shakedown Availability as a shipyard period “assigned to correct deficiencies found during the shakedown cruise or to accomplish other authorized improvements.” The carrier USS Gerald R. Ford was commissioned in July 2017. In July 2018 it began a planned 12-month post-shakedown availability, combined with other shipyard work.