Lockheed Martin invests US$50M in Saildrone to advance USV capabilities for US Navy

Washington DC-based Lockheed Martin has announced a US$50 million ($76.4 million) investment in fellow US company Saildrone, a global leader in maritime autonomous systems. This strategic collaboration will deliver commercially available Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USV) equipped with lethal, combat-proven defence technology, Lockheed Martin says. The two companies will collaborate with a goal of delivering integrations, including on-water, live fire demonstrations, in 2026.

This commercial relationship marries the world’s most sophisticated and trusted defence technology with the most capable and operationally tested USV technology, Lockheed Martin adds. This combination will be key to realizing the US Navy’s USV vision for critical missions such as fleet defence, undersea surveillance,

reconnaissance and attack. Work will begin immediately, applying an open architecture approach along with secure command and control capability to integrate Lockheed Martin’s Joint Air-Ground Missile (JAGM) Quad Launcher (JQL) system onto the Saildrone Surveyor platform.

“For the last 10 years we have focused on evolving the reliability, endurance and autonomy of the Saildrone platform, which has been demonstrated in over 2 million nautical miles of active customer missions,” said Richard Jenkins, founder and CEO of Saildrone.

“With our technology proven, de-risked and mission ready, now is the right time to augment Saildrone USVs with sophisticated payloads to meet warfighter needs. This collaboration will give Saildrone the tools we need to transform the capabilities of our platforms, to include electronic warfare, anti-submarine warfare, sophisticated surveillance and reconnaissance, as well as deploying kinetic effects.”

Larger Saildrone vehicles are already in development to support significantly larger payloads and capabilities to include the Lockheed Martin Mk70 VLS launcher and thin line towed arrays.

Saildrone USVs have been accomplishing complex maritime missions in the remote ocean since 2013, say the two companies. First deployed by the US Navy in 2021 this commercial relationship will harness Saildrone’s decade-plus of commercial expertise to quickly field new defence applications. Saildrone will maintain all shipbuilding responsibilities and Lockheed Martin will serve as lead mission integrator.