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Lockheed Martin receives XLUUV design contract

1st November 2017 - 14:30 GMT | by Shephard News Team

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Lockheed Martin has received a $43.2 million design phase contract for the US Navy’s Extra Large Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (XLUUV) programme, the company announced on 30 October.

The programme, which aims to meet increasing demand for undersea operational awareness and payload delivery, has been divided into two phases: the awarded design phase, and a competitive, production phase for up to nine UUVs.

Lockheed Martin's Orca XLUUV will be capable of performing a variety of missions, enabled by a reconfigurable payload bay. The vehicle’s key attributes include extended vehicle range, autonomy and persistence. Orca will be able to transit to an area of operation, loiter, periodically establish communications, deploy payloads, and transit home.

The US Navy personnel would be able to launch, recover, operate, and communicate with the vehicle remotely from a home base.

Frank Drennan, director, submersibles and autonomous systems, Lockheed Martin, said: ‘With each new undersea vehicle that Lockheed Martin designs, we bring to bear the technology and innovative system integration of those technologies, to increase the range, reach, and effectiveness of undersea forces and their missions.’

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