DIU issued a solicitation to vendors this week via its commercial solutions opening acquisition pathway for a “combat autonomous maritime platform.” The move comes as the Navy is pursuing Project 33 and other initiatives to beef up its fleet with robotic platforms and prepare for a potential war with China in the Pacific region. Maritime drones are seen as a cost-effective means of boosting the sea service’s capacity and capabilities while reducing risks to sailors by keeping them out of harm’s way.

“To maximize operational effectiveness in contested environments, the United States military requires enhanced capabilities for deploying large payloads across extended ranges. Current UUV capabilities present limitations in range and payload capacity, hindering the effective deployment of critical resources in certain operational scenarios,” officials wrote in the new solicitation. “The DoD seeks commercially available, demonstration-ready uncrewed systems that address these limitations, offering a scalable and cost-effective solution for long-range, high-capacity payload deployment.”

The CAMP program isn’t DIU’s first rodeo when it comes to UUVs. Last year, in partnership with the Navy, the organization awarded contracts to Anduril, Oceaneering International and Kongsberg Discovery to prototype large displacement unmanned underwater vehicles. However, the new CAMP platforms will be much bigger and have additional capabilities, a DIU spokesperson told DefenseScoop.

“These are an order of magnitude larger, much longer range, and carry even larger payloads. This is a different class of vehicle. For example, think of LDUUV as a sprinter van and CAMP as a moving truck,” the spokesperson said in an email. “These will be pier launched vs shipboard launched, based on anticipated size.”

The new solicitation isn’t being issued because the LDUUV prototypes didn’t meet expectations, according to DIU.

“Quite the opposite. We are building from the success from the LDUUV project, and attempting this with even larger and longer range UUVs,” the spokesperson said.

Officials want an autonomous system that can transit more than 1,000 nautical miles, go deeper than 200 meters underwater and release a variety of payloads of various sizes — including payloads that are 21 feet in length and 21 inches in diameter.

They also desire platforms that can communicate “across the air/water interface (acoustic and Radio Frequency)” and operate in GPS-denied environments, among other attributes.

Vendor responses are due May 1. DIU plans to move quickly into phase two — which is expected to start just four weeks after the close of the solicitation and include in-water live demonstrations of companies’ offerings.

Prototype other transaction agreements that are awarded may result in follow-on production contracts or agreements after successful prototype completion, according to DIU.

“The follow-on production contract or agreement will be available for use by one or more organizations within the Department of Defense. As a result, the magnitude of the follow-on production contract or agreement could be significantly larger than that of the Prototype OT agreement,” officials wrote.

Meanwhile, the Navy is pursuing other underwater drones, such as the extra-large UUV named Orca. That platform, built by Boeing, is an 85 ton, 85-feet-long unmanned diesel-electric submarine. Its design was inspired by Boeing’s Echo Voyager, which has a range of up to 6,500 nautical miles and can accommodate a modular payload section up to 34 feet in length, according to a Congressional Research Service report. However, the Orca differs in some respects to meet military requirements and it appears to be significantly larger than the Echo Voyager.

Construction of the Orca XLE-1 is complete, and developmental and operational testing of the system was slated to continue through the third quarter of this fiscal year.

“Orca, and other platforms like her, are an important step forward as we drive towards our future hybrid fleet, which is going be composed of manned and unmanned platforms. It’s a hybrid fleet that we know we will need to maintain our warfighting advantage,” then Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti said late last year while touring Boeing’s manufacturing facility, according to a Navy release.

Franchetti was later fired as CNO by President Donald Trump in February along with several other senior military officers. Since then, Adm. James Kilby has been performing the duties of CNO as observers wait for Trump to announce his pick for a new service chief.

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Technology Operational Experimentation Event 25.2 is part of a campaign led by the Office of Naval Research-Global that will look at emerging tech to support operational objectives related to “subsea and seabed warfare,” according to a new sources-sought notice.

One of the three focus areas will be on capabilities that can monitor and “defend underwater infrastructure and facilities to deny adversary undersea reconnaissance via emplaced devices or underwater vehicles.” That includes sensors and tools for “automated target recognition,” per an attachment to the notice.

Lawmakers have voiced concerns about potential threats posed by adversaries’ maritime drones operating in U.S. waters and near American military facilities. They’ve suggested the Pentagon may need to procure new tools to counter those types of systems.

“Incursions of unmanned aerial vehicles into United States airspace is an issue of concern. The committee believes that potential incursions of unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) could pose similar problems for our security,” members of the Senate Armed Services Committee wrote in their report for the SASC version of the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, suggesting Pentagon leadership should consider “whether the Department needs to acquire different or enhanced capabilities to neutralize future threats from UUVs.”

During a counter-drone panel at NDIA’s Emerging Technologies for Defense Conference and Exhibition last week, Mike Dickerson, executive director of the Navy’s maritime accelerated response capability cell, highlighted the growing threats that the sea service must contend with.

“It’s not just unmanned aerial systems. It is also in the surface and underwater domains. But really, from my perspective, both systems in the surface and the underwater domains are following a very similar pathway to what we saw with the unmanned aircraft threat. They may be a few years behind, but it’s following the exact same exponential increase in capability and in proliferation across the board. And obviously we’re going to continue to face these challenges as technologies evolve and as novel, innovative ways to employ them continue to change. But I personally believe that with the right approaches, the right partnerships, and really with targeting some of the investments in the appropriate areas, that we’ll remain postured to appropriately address this threat,” Dickerson said.

The Navy has been eyeing potential solutions.

Last year, the service sent a notice to industry that it was seeking technologies related to seabed and port security for defense against divers and UUVs, including capabilities to support detection, tracking and fire control needed for engagement of potential undersea threats.

The Navy has also worked with the Defense Innovation Unit to pursue targeting-related technologies through Project Automatic Target Recognition using Machine Learning Operations for Maritime Operations — also known as Project AMMO.

For TOEE 25.2, other focus areas include capabilities that facilitate autonomous undersea navigation, collaborative autonomy and mission behaviors “during long range unmanned underwater transits without exposing the platform to detection,” as well as tools and decision aids that enhance command and control and “enable effective planning and mission coordination of distributed [subsea and seabed warfare] assets,” according to the new notice.

The experimentation campaign is being planned amid a broader push by the sea service — and the Defense Department writ large — to acquire AI and autonomy tools to both aid commanders’ decision-making and enable uncrewed platforms to operate collaboratively or as part of a larger network of manned and unmanned systems.

The interest in enabling technologies comes as the Navy is pursuing large UUVs to beef up its undersea capabilities for long-range intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and other missions, without putting sailors in harm’s way with manned submarines.

In February, the Defense Innovation Unit in partnership with the Navy’s program office for advanced undersea systems, announced that three vendors — Anduril Industries, Oceaneering International and Kongsberg Discovery — had been awarded contracts to prototype large undersea drones for the U.S. military.

“Undersea warfare is critical to success in the Pacific and other contested environments, providing needed autonomous underwater sensing and payload delivery in dispersed, long-range, deep and contested environments is key. Crewed submarines are high-value, high-resource capital platforms necessary for crucial combat missions. In particular, the U.S. military requires a fleet of Large Displacement Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (LDUUVs) with diverse capabilities,” DIU said in a release at the time.

Separately, in December 2023, the Navy took delivery of its first Orca unmanned submarine. The extra-large UUV is intended to be a high-endurance undersea drone with a modular payload bay that can travel long distances autonomously and lay mines or perform other missions.

Meanwhile, the outcome of the TOEE 25.2 experimentation will inform Navy science-and-technology investments — including for further development, transition, or divestiture — according to the notice.

“Limited technical assessments” of capabilities performed by government personnel at contractor facilities are slated to take place in the October-November timeframe.

According to officials, the Office of Naval Research-Global intends to invite contractors with “standout systems” to participate in the TOEE 25.2 experimentation series throughout fiscal 2025. “Limited objective experiments” and an “advanced capability experiment” at government ranges are planned for January 2025 and September 2025, respectively.

Responses to the RFI are due Sept. 27. Before the deadline, the sea service plans to hold a virtual industry day Aug. 28 to discuss the initiative.

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The move comes as the Navy is trying to move toward what it calls a “hybrid fleet” of crewed and uncrewed systems, including a variety of unmanned underwater vessels and unmanned surface vessels. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti sees robotic systems and other emerging technologies as a key piece to her vision of the future force, that will help “put more players on the field.”

Maritime drones are seen as a cost-effective means of boosting the Navy’s capacity and capabilities while reducing risks to sailors by keeping them out of harm’s way, at a time when service officials view China as their main competitor and are preparing for a potential conflict in the Pacific region.

“Undersea warfare is critical to success in the Pacific and other contested environments, providing needed autonomous underwater sensing and payload delivery in dispersed, long-range, deep and contested environments is key. Crewed submarines are high-value, high-resource capital platforms necessary for crucial combat missions. In particular, the U.S. military requires a fleet of Large Displacement Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (LDUUVs) with diverse capabilities,” according to a Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) release issued Thursday announcing the awards.

The Navy’s program office for advanced undersea systems —PMS 394 —which falls under Naval Sea Systems Command, is teaming with DIU on the effort.

The Defense Innovation Unit, which is headquartered in Silicon Valley, works to connect the Pentagon with nontraditional contractors and commercial technologies that have military applications. It also aims to move faster than traditional Defense Department acquisition processes, via what it calls a commercial solutions opening, to get companies on contract quickly and move forward with prototyping.

Live demonstrations of the LDUUV technology are slated for March 2024, per the release.

“NAVSEA, in partnership with the DIU, has selected the best-in-breed from industry to rapidly advance new undersea capabilities in the Subsea and Seabed Warfare domain,” Capt. Grady Hill, program manager for PMS 394, said in a statement. “We are accelerating our development plans by utilizing rapid contracting authorities to speed capability to the Fleet.”

The picks were made following what DIU called “a rigorous evaluation process.”

The project isn’t the only maritime drone initiative that DIU is awarding contracts for to support the Navy. Just last week, it issued a solicitation for autonomous unmanned surface vessels that can operate in packs to monitor and intercept adversary ships. The aim is to build 10 or more robo-boats per month.

Separately, the Navy recently took delivery of its first Orca unmanned submarine. The extra-large UUV is intended to be a high-endurance undersea drone with a modular payload bay that can travel long distances autonomously and lay mines or perform other missions.

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The Orca unmanned undersea vehicle is an “85 ton, 85-feet-long unmanned diesel-electric submarine. They don’t like me to call it that. It’s an extra-large UUV [XLUUV]. But let’s be honest, it’s 85 tons — it’s an unmanned submarine,” Capt. Scot Searles, program manager for unmanned maritime systems, said during a briefing this week at the Surface Navy Association’s annual symposium.

Boeing delivered the first system to the Navy in December.

The service wants to field a high-endurance undersea drone with a modular payload bay that can travel long distances autonomously and lay mines or perform other missions without putting sailors in harm’s way.

In a statement, Ann Stevens, Boeing’s vice president of maritime and intelligence systems, described the Orca as a “first-of-its-kind capability” for the U.S. military.

The platform went through at-sea testing, including above- and below-surface maneuvers, before the system was delivered last month. But that’s not the end of it.

“Very complex piece of equipment. Very hard work to get where we’re at today … Got it through all of its risk reduction trials and got it delivered. It’s in the Navy’s hands now. It’s down at Huntington Beach [in California] right now, getting ready to go back into the water and continue testing later this month. It’s got 15, 16 more trials planned. So, it’s 16 test periods … focusing on a bunch of different things — obstacle avoidance, just a whole litany of things that it’s got to do [for] mission profiles,” Searles told DefenseScoop at the SNA symposium.

“It’s going to go test every single sensor that was on board, the performance of every sensor that’s on board, and then is it behaving as it needs to in a tactical operating environment? So going beyond just we know all the surfaces work, we know the propulsion works, we drive it around, we can set a new mission [and] it can drive itself autonomously. Check. Now give it to me, now let me go play with it in the real environment. So, all of that’s risk reduction,” he said.

The system that was just delivered is an engineering development model, according to Searles. Boeing is expected to deliver another five vehicles to meet what the Pentagon calls a “joint emergent operational need” (JEON).

“The five JEON vehicles are still on track for delivery at the end of this year. We do have some schedule pressure there. I’ll be completely transparent. You know, it has been a challenge with some of the quality issues we’ve had along the way. We’ve learned a lot. There’s a lot of titanium built into these vessels, and that’s not a forgiving material to work with,” Searles said.

However, “I will tell you … we’re very thrilled with our prime [contractor]. It’s been very aggressive in getting after correcting everything we found. So very happy with how Boeing’s been doing it. I as much as anybody, would have liked to have not had any of those problems. But when you do have them, what you do expect is for industry to go figure it out and fix it. And I would tell you Boeing has done a fantastic job getting after it,” he added.

The first Orca platform, which the Navy has designated XLE0, will be headed out to an operational area off the coast of southern California later this month, according to Searles.

“We’re super excited to have one now in our own hands,” he said.

The design of the platform was inspired by Boeing’s Echo Voyager, which has a range of up to 6,500 nautical miles and can accommodate a modular payload section up to 34 feet in length, as well as external payloads, according to a Congressional Research Service report.

However, the Orca will differ in some respects to meet military requirements, it noted.

The Echo Voyager is 51 feet long and has a weight in the air of 50 tons, according to the CRS report. Searles’ comments about the Orca weighing 85 tons and being 85 feet long seem to indicate that the Navy system is significantly larger than the Echo Voyager.

DefenseScoop asked Rear Adm. Kevin Smith, program executive officer for unmanned and small combatants, when the Orca might be integrated into larger exercises — such as the Integrated Battle Problem series conducted by U.S. Pacific Fleet — or conduct transoceanic voyages like some of the unmanned surface vessel (USV) prototypes that the Navy has been operating.

“The five that we have in production besides the prototype we just launched, they’re going to be delivered in … 24, ’25. So, I can’t really comment per se on some of the stuff that the fleet is going to do. But not long after some of those deliveries, there’s going to start being even more [activity]. You know, still working on the [concept of operations] and all those kinds of things, but you know it’s right on the heels of that,” he said.

Fabrication awards for additional XLUUVs are planned for fiscal 2026, and the service anticipates “gradually ramping up quantities in future fiscal years, depending on the progress from the first five systems,” according to Navy budget documents.

In a keynote speech at the SNA symposium, the new Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti said she sees uncrewed systems as a key element of her vision of the future force that will contribute to a broader “warfighting ecosystem.”

Smith, the PEO, specifically mentioned the Orca during a panel at the conference.

“That’s going to bring a lot of capability to the fleet. More players on the field,” he said.

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The service is pursuing extra-large unmanned undersea vessels (XLUUV) that can travel long distances and lay mines without putting sailors in harm’s way. The initiative is part of a broader push to acquire new robotic platforms for the fleet. The Navy is also acquiring and deploying a variety of unmanned surface vessels and unmanned aerial systems.

In a press release, Boeing described Orca as “a new class of autonomous submarine that can perform long duration critical missions to achieve undersea maritime dominance in changing environments and contested waters.”

“This is the culmination of more than a decade of pioneering work, developing a long-range, fully autonomous undersea vehicle with a large payload capacity that can operate completely independently of a host vehicle,” Ann Stevens, vice president of maritime and intelligence systems at Boeing, said in a statement. “I’ve had the distinct pleasure of witnessing our team bring this first-of-its-kind capability to life, and I’m proud of their innovation, perseverance and unwavering commitment which has yielded the most advanced and capable UUV in the world. With the Navy’s partnership, we look forward to continuing to deliver this game-changing vehicle to the fleet.”

The Navy defines XLUUVs as unmanned underwater vessels with a diameter of more than 84 inches, according to a Congressional Research Service report.

In 2019, the Navy tapped Boeing to fabricate, test and deliver the first five Orcas. It’s part of an effort to address what the Pentagon calls a “joint emergent operational need.”

“Orca XLUUV is a multi-phased accelerated acquisition effort to rapidly deliver capability to the Fleet,” according to Navy budget documents. “Fabrication awards of additional Orca XLUUV systems are planned for [fiscal 2026] and out, gradually ramping up quantities in future fiscal years, depending on the progress from the first five systems. XLUUV will have a modular payload bay, with defined interfaces that current and future payloads must adhere to for employment from the vehicle.”

The initiative will integrate “the currently required payload, and potential future payloads will be developed, evaluated, and preliminarily integrated leveraging the Core Technologies Program Element 0604029N. Additional XLUUV technologies/capabilities risk reduction will occur in parallel, leveraging the competitive Industrial base,” per the documents.

The Navy requested $104 million for fiscal 2024 for advanced undersea prototyping for the effort.

Orca was put through its paces during multiple phases of at-sea testing, including above- and below-surface maneuvers, before the first system was delivered this month, according to Boeing.

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Maritime drones are capable of performing a variety of military missions such as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, mine laying and more. The Pentagon is pursuing a variety of these types of systems, and it also has a force of Navy SEALs that are trained to operate below the waves.

But the Pentagon also needs the ability to thwart adversaries’ capabilities in this realm.

“The Government is seeking technologies related to seabed and port security for defense against divers and UUVs. These technologies should support detection, tracking, and the subsequent fire control necessary for engagement of potential undersea manned and unmanned threats,” according to a source sought notice released Friday by the Navy on Sam.gov.

Mission packages that the sea service is eyeing include shore- or ship-based subsystems, equipment and software for mission planning, tactical decision aid, field management (health and status) and battle damage assessment — as well as systems for detection, tracking, navigation and communications.

Product requirements noted in the request for information include the ability to plan and deliver a field of distributed, autonomously networked wireless sensor nodes via UUV; detect and classify a target of interest and provide its bearing, range and speed by utilizing said network, with the option to command and control the network and operations remotely via an operator interface; and assemble information provided by the network autonomously to form an estimation of target track and position.

The aim is to have a combination of capabilities, or “system of systems,” that can “hold a threat target at risk of prosecution” by U.S. weapons.

In an attachment to the RFI, the Navy listed 39 areas of general interest related to these types of technologies including a slew of sensors; multi-source sensor data fusion and exploitation; techniques for quantum encryption, coding and computation; multi-domain UUV autonomous operation and interaction; insertion of artificial intelligence “techniques” into undersea sensors for “situations optimization”; contested undersea battlespace payload delivery; “netted” UUV-deployed anti-submarine warfare weapons and delivery; and others.

Responses to the RFI are due Sept. 5.

Meanwhile, lawmakers are also sounding the alarm about the threats posed by undersea drones and trying to push a bill that would require the Pentagon to do more analysis and formulate a strategy to beef up U.S. defenses.

“Incursions of unmanned aerial vehicles into United States airspace is an issue of concern. The committee believes that potential incursions of unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) could pose similar problems for our security. Therefore, the committee directs the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, to analyze incidents of suspected or confirmed intrusions by UUVs on or near U.S. military installations. Based on that analysis, the Secretary shall identify a strategy for addressing such incursions, and whether the Department needs to acquire different or enhanced capabilities to neutralize future threats from UUVs,” per the Senate Armed Services Committee’s report on the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, which was passed by the Senate last month.

The bill would task the secretary of defense to deliver a report on that strategy to the congressional defense and intelligence committees by April 1, 2024.

Congress has yet to pass a final version of the 2024 NDAA.

During a teleconference in June, DefenseScoop asked Senate Armed Services Committee member Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., why the provision was included in the legislation and whether it was in response to specific adversary activities that the committee had learned of.

“I would say that it’s more based upon an awareness of the technology and how it can be used than a response to a particular incident. But we know the technology. I mean, we have such technologies, we know how they can be used. And … it would be kind of malpractice not to make sure that our own assets are protected,” Kaine said.

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The Navy is looking at options to meet that need.

In a Feb. 1 letter to lawmakers obtained by DefenseScoop, Del Toro said a study is underway to assess the supporting infrastructure required to operate the envisioned hybrid fleet, including the possibility of repurposing existing vessels for the mothership role. The letter came as Congress is pressuring the Navy to look at potential alternative uses for the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) amid lingering concerns about its lethality and survivability as a combat platform in a future war against an advanced adversary.

“Specifically, we’re looking at the LCS to see … if there’s viability to actually turn it into a mothership for unmanned technologies, which I think is going to be very important to our strategy moving forward,” Del Toro told DefenseScoop on Wednesday at NDIA’s Expeditionary Warfare Conference.

“To be able to utilize the LCS platform as well as a mothership for unmanned technologies is extremely important — whether it be, you know, drones in the air, whether it be smaller vessels on the surface, and also under the surface as well, too. So that’s why we took on this exploration to see what we can do and how we can possibly get there. We’ll have to see over the next few months exactly what comes from that,” he said.

Del Toro hasn’t set a more specific target date for staff to wrap up the study and present their findings.

“This is experimental, this is new. And so we have to explore all the different possibilities that exist. I didn’t want to put a specific timeline on it … to artificially cut off the work that they actually have to do,” he told DefenseScoop.

The Navy has also been conducting market research to see if contractors would be able to satisfy anticipated program requirements for an unmanned mother ship that could launch other types of robotic platforms on the high seas.

Last fall, the service released an RFI for an “Attritable UxS Mother Ship” (AUMS) as it looks for a way to cost-effectively deliver large numbers of drones of various kinds to forward locations in a contested environment. Having a low-cost, uncrewed, “attritable” vessel that could perform this task would allow the Navy to avoid putting manned ships into harm’s way to conduct these missions.

AUMS systems “shall be unmanned and capable of following waypoints and navigating via GPS. Design considerations should account for lack of GPS, but with a focus on the trade space of cost to navigate without GPS vs. navigational drift. Also, concepts should consider Over The Horizon (OTH) communications and Line Of Sight (LOS) communications as a means of providing basic tasking to the platform and maintaining situational awareness of the platform,” according to the RFI.

Responses to the RFI were due in December.

Meanwhile, the Navy has been experimenting with a variety of robo-ships and drones. The 5th Fleet’s Task Force 59 has been deploying them in operational settings in U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility, as it works to build a “mesh network” of uncrewed platforms — enabled by sensors, artificial intelligence and the cloud — for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions.

The service intends to create additional unmanned task forces modeled after Task Force 59, in other regions of the world under 4th Fleet and 7th Feet.

The Navy is expected to spend billions of dollars in the coming years to acquire more robotic platforms to operate in multiple domains, including unmanned aerial systems, surface vessels and underwater vessels.

“Through these investments, we buy down risk for our manned crews while simultaneously adopting platforms that are force multipliers capable of supporting distributed operations. Bringing these unmanned systems online is possible because of the strength of our defense industrial base [and] their ability to research, develop, test and field platforms capable of supporting our expeditionary forces wherever they may be required to go,” Del Toro said at the NDIA conference.

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The Department of Defense on Thursday released an image of a UUV being prepared for deployment by sailors assigned to Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 2, which is participating in the search effort. On Friday morning, a DOD spokesman confirmed to DefenseScoop that the platform in the photo is the Defender undersea drone.

Earlier this week, Gen. Glen VanHerck, commander of U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command, said explosive ordnance disposal teams had deployed to the area to begin UUV operations, but he did not identify which specific system would be employed.

“I’m not the expert … [but] I can assure you that it has photographic capabilities. It’ll have capabilities to emplace things such as inflatable devices and mapping sonar, those types of things,” he told DefenseScoop and other reporters during a briefing on Monday.

Explosive ordnance disposal teams “went out in what’s called a rigid hull inflatable boat … to proceed to the area to utilize unmanned underwater vehicles, using side-scan sonar to further locate sunken debris,” he said. “And so we expect them to get on there and to do some additional categorization of potential threats such as explosives that may be [there] … hazardous materials that could be in [the balloon’s] batteries, etc. So we’re working very hard. I’d remind you this is an effort that’s in the open ocean ongoing in approximately 50 feet of water, and so we have to be very cognizant of the [sea] states, currents, etc. So we continue to move forward.”

In an August 2022 press release, VideoRay announced what it described as “a large and diverse order for its Defender remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) by the U.S. Navy.”

The company’s support for Navy users of the man-portable system includes training facilities and staffing in Pottstown, Pennsylvania and San Diego.

“Recent new capabilities for Defender systems are evolving rapidly due to close cooperation testing and development between VideoRay, its component manufacturers and several units of the Navy. These include the ability to autonomously identify and defeat underwater mines and perform other tasks with minimal or no active user input. Defender units now can go deeper, can be equipped with batteries and lightweight splash-proof controllers and communicate without tethers over long distances underwater,” per the release.

In a statement, VideoRay Chief Technology Officer Marcus Kolb said the company is “proving we can do real work at one kilometer of depth, acoustically transceive video and telemetry data through one kilometer of open ocean, and find and neutralize mines autonomously. We designed the Defender system to be powerful, open and flexible so it could handle large payloads, instruments and tools — many of which hadn’t been conceived when we designed the platform. We are delighted to see how well the Defender systems have been working with larger, more complex payloads and missions than we had initially envisioned.”

The platform has a depth rating up to 1,000 meters, submersible weight in air of 38 pounds, total system weight of 71.6 pounds, and forward speed of 4 knots, according to VideoRay’s product description.

Other nations and organizations are also interested in the Defender tech. As of August 2022, VideoRay had delivered or had “firm orders” from 20 other navies and coast guards from allied countries, as well as orders from commercial customers, according to the company.

The U.S. Navy photo released on Thursday indicates that the system the sea service is employing for the balloon search effort may include control and navigation capabilities or other technology provided by Greensea Systems.

DefenseScoop asked the Pentagon if other types of UUVs were also being deployed for the balloon debris search effort, and how many underwater drones are involved in the operation. A DOD spokesman said he had “nothing further to provide about any other potential capabilities being utilized at this time.”

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“We’re confident that what we’ve learned about this program enables us to be able to monitor and be on the lookout for these kinds of capabilities. And when you think about the wide array of activities that we monitor globally, but most importantly when it comes to defense of the homeland along our coasts and our skies, by being able to identify the characteristics of things like this or other potential threats, it all gets put into a broader library, so to speak, of information that our analysts can monitor, track and detect, and then respond appropriately,” he said.

Divers and explosives ordnance technicians were permitted on Tuesday to conduct underwater salvage and recovery efforts, and underwater survey activities with unmanned underwater vehicles are also still unfolding. The USS Carter Hall remains in the vicinity of the debris field and is leading the recovery efforts. Coast Guard cutters are also providing security for these operations while “FBI and NCIS agents continue their work cataloging debris and transporting it for further processing,” according to Ryder.

The downed balloon, which DOD maintains gradually maneuvered and allegedly collected intelligence across the continental United States last week, was the first of its kind to be officially acknowledged by the Pentagon. However, Ryder confirmed during the briefing that the government is assessing at least four other ballon-type objects that previously lingered over the U.S., but did not traverse completely across it. 

At least three Chinese balloons were reported during the Trump administration, and two since President Biden took office, according to officials.

“So, beyond the fact that they share the common characteristic of being surveillance balloons, right — intelligence collection assets that the PRC is employing — the only other thing I’ll say is that we do know there’s variation in the various sizes and capabilities of balloon. But beyond that, I’m not going to go into specifics,” Ryder said.

Ryder declined to provide any further information about the flight paths of balloons in China’s fleet.

In a recent review of U.S. military and government sightings of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), officials mentioned that more than 160 reports were eventually characterized as balloon or similar capabilities.

When asked by DefenseScoop on Wednesday whether the U.S. government assessed that a “Chinese fleet” existed after this balloon was spotted or based on what was determined in past UAP investigations, Ryder simply said “we were tracking this before this particular incident,” and that “our awareness and understanding of this capability has increased over the last couple of years.”

The DOD and intelligence community are now “trying [their] best to provide the public with as much information” as they can on the broader balloon program — without compromising any sources or collection methods, he told DefenseScoop.

Some critics and lawmakers have been vocal about their views that this incident demonstrates gaps and weaknesses in the U.S. government’s ability to predict or sense adversarial threats. One former active duty officer told DefenseScoop this week, for example, “in a nutshell, I think this is an embarrassment to our Defense Department on so many levels.” 

In the press briefing on Wednesday, Ryder maintained that this “was not an intelligence failure,” but a “unique opportunity” that is contributing to the making of a “body of knowledge on this program,” which DOD will “apply to defending our skies and protecting our citizens well into the future.” 

“We’ve been able to learn a lot about what they’re doing and their intent. We observe a lot of things every single day in a lot of different ways from an intelligence collection standpoint, and those are things that we’re not necessarily going to talk about publicly for obvious reasons. There’s also benefit in us knowing what they’re doing and not publicly talking about what they’re doing. But in terms of monitoring these and collecting on them, we have been able to put together a body of knowledge that enables us to be able to detect them and act appropriately,” Ryder said.

He added that he would not be surprised if China “starts to reevaluate its dirigible collection program.”

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Unsafe conditions at sea prevented explosive ordnance disposal teams from deploying the UUVs from a manned craft on Sunday, Gen. Glen VanHerck told reporters during a briefing on Monday.

“Today they’re on scene as of 10 o’clock Eastern this morning,” he said.

“They went out in what’s called a rigid hull inflatable boat … to proceed to the area to utilize unmanned underwater vehicles, using side-scan sonar to further locate sunken debris,” he said. “And so we expect them to get on there and to do some additional categorization of potential threats such as explosives that may be [there] … hazardous materials that could be in [the balloon’s] batteries, etc. So we’re working very hard. I’d remind you this is an effort that’s in the open ocean ongoing in approximately 50 feet of water, and so we have to be very cognizant of the [sea] states, currents, etc. So we continue to move forward.”

VanHerck told DefenseScoop that he did not have enough information on hand to say what specific UUV systems are involved or how many of them will be deployed but the DOD may be able to provide that to reporters later.

“I’m not the expert … [but] I can assure you that it has photographic capabilities. It’ll have capabilities to emplace things such as inflatable devices and mapping sonar, those types of things,” he said.

Manned platforms including the USS Carter Hall and USNS Pathfinder are also involved in the search-and-recovery effort on the surface and undersea.

Using a variety of sensors such as sonar, the Navy is working to produce a detailed map of the debris field.

The U.S. government is eager to recover as many pieces of the suspected surveillance balloon as possible so they can be analyzed to glean intelligence about the system and its payload.

The debris field is expected to be approximately 1,500 meters by 1,500 meters — or about 15 football fields squared, according to VanHerck. U.S. Navy and Coast Guard have cordoned off the area from civilian maritime traffic.

The giant balloon that was shot down was up to 200 feet tall. The payload that it carried was “a jet airliner type of size” and probably weighed “in excess of a couple thousand pounds,” he said.

Defense officials have said the decision was made not to shoot down the air vehicle over land as it was traversing the continental United States because of the risk of harm to people and infrastructure on the ground.

“From a safety standpoint, picture yourself with large debris weighing hundreds if not thousands of pounds falling out of the sky. That’s really what we’re kind of talking about. So glass off of solar panels, potentially hazardous material such as material that is required for batteries to operate in such an environment as this, and even the potential for explosives to detonate and destroy the balloon. That could have been present. So I think that would give you an idea of the perspective of the balloon and the decision-making process along the way,” VanHerck told reporters.

He said he couldn’t confirm whether the platform was carrying any explosives. However, “anytime you down something like this, we make an assumption that that potential exists. We did not associate the potential of having explosives with a threat to dropping weapons, those kinds of things. But out of a precaution, abundance of safety for not only our military people and the public, we have to make assumptions such as that,” VanHerck said.

Due to ocean currents, it’s possible that some debris may wash up on shore. The public should avoid contact with any of that material and immediately contact local law enforcement to take care of it, VanHerck cautioned.

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