Lockheed Martin bags contract to design the Orca, an extra large, unmanned undersea vehicle, for the US Navy

The US Navy has awarded a design-phase contract for its extra large unmanned undersea vehicle (XLUUV) to Lockheed Martin. The autonomous undersea vehicle is named the "Orca" and the contract is valued at $43.2 million. The production of the XLUUV Orca is set up as a two phase competition, with a design phase and a production phase which will see the building of up to nine vehicles.[caption id="attachment_4187291" align="alignleft" width="380"] Image: Lockheed Martin[/caption]Frank Drennan, director, submersibles and autonomous systems at Lockheed Martin says, "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. With decades of experience supporting the U.S. Navy’s mission, our engineers are approaching this design with a sense of urgency and continued agility."Lockheed Martin has over forty years of experience in developing drones or autonomous vehicles in air, sea and land. The vehicle will have a reconfigurable payload bay which will support various kinds of missions. The types of missions planned for the Orca include surveillance, intelligence gathering, mine countermeasures and warning notifications. The Orca will also serve as an anti submarine warfare training platform. The modular system will be able to adapt to emerging needs. The main attributes of Orca include an extended range, deploy payloads, establish temporary communications and transit to and from an area of operation, without putting Navy personnel in harm's way.