Lockheed Martin to design U.S. Navy’s unmanned undersea vehicle
Staff
Automation Defense lockheed martin U.S. navyU.S. Navy awarded Lockheed Martin the $43.2 million contract to design the XLUUV Orca long-range autonomous vehicle platform.
Lockheed Martin wins a $43.2 million contract to help design the U.S. Navy’s family of unmanned undersea systems for Orca, the U.S. Navy’s Extra Large Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (XLUUV).
Lockheed Martin engineers will design an Extra Large Unmanned Undersea Vehicle, Orca, for the U.S. Navy. Image courtesy Lockheed Martin.
The two-phase competition is set to design and build 9 underwater vehicles in order to meet increasing demands for undersea operational awareness and payload delivery.
XLUUV Orca is a long-range autonomous vehicle platform that will perform a variety of missions. In order to do this, the vehicle will be designed with a reconfigurable payload bay.
A critical benefit of Orca is that Navy personnel launch, recover, operate, and communicate with the vehicle from a home base and are never placed in harm’s way.
“With each new undersea vehicle that Lockheed Martin designs, we bring to bear the state-of-the-art in technology, and innovative system integration of those technologies, to increase the range, reach, and effectiveness of undersea forces and their missions,” said Frank Drennan, director, submersibles and autonomous systems, business development.
Lockheed Martin has over four decades of experience in unmanned and robotic systems for sea, air and land.
Lockheed Martin employees in Palm Beach, Florida, will perform the work on Orca, with additional support from employees at the company’s locations in Manassas, Virginia, Syracuse, New York, and Owego, New York.
