Page 40 – Defense Daily

Leidos Pitches New Low-Cost Attritable UUV

Leidos [LDOS] last week pitched a new Sea Dart small, attritable low-cost uncrewed undersea vessel (UUV) as an alternative to more expensive systems during the annual 2025 Sea-Air-Space expo.

“Sea Dart is the next step in the progressive evolution of our UUV product line, introducing a new, low-cost commercial UUV to the market. It offers the flexibility to fully customize customer payloads while staying true to our core commitment to keeping production costs significantly lower than other models,” Dave Lewis, senior vice president of Sea Systems for Leidos, said in a statement.

The new one or two-person transportable UUV comes in two standard diameters: six and nine inches. The company noted it is capable of performing either environmental, scientific or research missions focused on low cost platforms or the Navy with a platform compatible with the Navy’s preferred underwater vehicle software architecture and new non-propogating UUV battery design. Leidos is also considering producing a 12.75-inch diameter variant.

The range will be user-selectable, dependent on payload, but the company is looking at about 19 hours range with maximum battery storage combined with low speed. If the client prefers a higher end motor to go over 12 knots, that lowers the endurance.

The company developed the Sea Dart with internal research and development funding.

One of the reasons Leidos is pushing the Sea Dart is to “change the conversation, and instead of continuing on a ramp of more exquisite capability in some of these vehicles, we wanted to move into a place that we allowed a UUV for the masses, if you will,” Jason Weed, Undersea Subject Matter Expert at Leidos’ Maritime Systems Division, told Defense Daily in an interview last week.

Weed added the company’s goal is for the vehicle to be attritable, but with user-selected payloads so it can act like a smart torpedo or aid in counter-mine, underwater survey, undersea infrastructure sensing and other missions for military or civilian clients.

He said Leidos is pricing out the Sea Dart to be in the “very, very low hundreds of thousands – I could say very comfortably about $200,000 for one of our units.”

The company billed this as 80 to 90 percent lower than similar small UUVs on the market with similar capabilities, making their strength being able to provide the Navy with large numbers in the near term.

“We can kind of get scale or bring other players in to the UUV field that otherwise couldn’t because the $2 million to $4 million price tag for some of these very exquisite vehicles,- we’re 10x at least on the savings between those exquisite vehicles where it has probably a lot of functionality that isn’t necessary for the specific use case that the customer is looking for,” Weed said.

He argued this translates into a $100 million order for small UUVs means at least over 200 Sea Darts with full payload integration compared to a notional competitors’ 50 UUVs that cost $1 million to $2 million each.

“That’s really what the differentiator is, is there are other folks out here in the market, but when you do a side by side comparison of what their capabilities are, they don’t match up and align for what we’re doing,” he added.

This comes amid several new entrants into the Navy UUV market as demand rises to produce new capabilities faster than traditional shipbuilding can deliver. During the expo, Anduril announced its new Copperhead family of UUVs that are meant to be launched from another unmanned vehicle, with a similar weaponized munition variant option (Defense Daily, April 7).

Weed said Leidos has integrated the capability to launch and recover Sea Dart from a submarine torpedo tube, but it can also be launched and recovered from the seafloor or surface ships

“The goal is to have an attritable vehicle. Obviously, we can recover it. We can build that functional functionality into the payloads. But also it’s limited use. It’s not designed to last 10 or 15 years, because that’s not the price point we’re at.”

He boasted that given the vehicle price point and design combined with its open software architecture, Leidos can replace obsolete components “on the fly” and continue to maintain it without a major complete redesign.

Weed said the company’s workflow analysis found they can produce about 180 to 200 UUVs per year with one work cell working one shift per work day. However, Weed emphasized they can flex to add work cells or more shifts if demand signal increases.

Medium displacement unmanned surface vessel Sea Hunter sails in formation during Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2022 on July 28. (Photo: U.S. Navy by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Aleksandr Freutel)

“ I would say very comfortably that we can probably build 200 units a year, as soon as the order would come in, we could move to that level. And we’re working very closely with our subcontractors to get those lead components that we would need as well,” Weed said.

He also confirmed Sea Dart is partially an outgrowth of DoD’s Replicator initiative but also his own kind of experience previously working at Navy Unmanned Undersea Vehicles Squadron One, now UUV Group One, where he saw no similar low-cost options that can scale into the hundreds for constant deployment in the Navy’s inventory.

“There wasn’t anything out there at a price point that was going to make sense for the Navy. And so through internal [research and development funding], they developed this vehicle, the Sea Dart.

Weed said Leidos has already integrated the payload of one customer they would not disclose, with an in-water test in recent weeks. He said within a month of getting the payload, Leidos tested and integrated it with the Sea Dart.

He confirmed the company has had active government interest in Sea Dart and international interest, referencing the expo opportunity to showcase.

Other unmanned offerings from Leidos include its Sea Archer small unmanned surface vessel (USV) and for Navy-tested medium USVs, the Sea Hunter, Sea Hawk, Ranger and Mariner.

Malave Departs Lockheed Martin; Evan Scott Named New CFO

Lockheed Martin [LMT] on Thursday announced the abrupt departure of Jay Malave as the company’s chief financial officer (CFO) and named Evan Scott as his successor, effective immediately.

Malave, who joined the company as CFO in January 2022, told the company he was “going to pursue other opportunities,” Lockheed Martin said.

There was no “financial or accounting issue or any disagreement with the company on any matter related to the company’s operations, policies or practices,” a Lockheed Martin spokesperson told Defense Daily

. “This was a personal decision.”

Lockheed Martin’s press release announcing the CFO change did not thank Malave for his service nor wish him well in his future pursuits.

The company next Tuesday will report first quarter 2025 financial results and said it will reaffirm its prior guidance for the year, “exclusive of the evolving impacts of tariffs and the recent Next Generation Air Dominance announcement.”

The Air Force in March awarded Boeing [BA] the engineering and development contract for the manned NGAD F-47 fighter (Defense Daily, March 21).

Scott, 48, a 26-year veteran of Lockheed Martin, most recently served as CFO of the Missiles and Fire Control operating segment since Jan. 1, 2024, and before that as treasurer from June 2022 through December 2023, and previously as vice president of finance and business operations of the Space segment from March 2019 to August 2021.

“Over his 26 years at Lockheed Martin, Evan has earned the utmost respect as an experienced finance and operations leader, with deep understanding of our business and mission,” Jim Taiclet, chairman, president and CEO, said in a statement.

Malave joined Lockheed Martin from L3Harris Technologies [LHX] where he also was CFO for nearly three years. Before L3Harris, for years he served in various financial positions at the former United Technologies Corp. and its operating segments.

USAF Considers FY 2027 EMD for Wedgetail Upgrades, Including MESA Replacement

The U.S. Air Force is considering starting engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) in fiscal 2027 for upgrades to the Boeing [BA] E-7A Wedgetail, including a replacement of the Northrop Grumman [NOC] Multi-Role Electronically Scanned Array (MESA) radar.

The Air Force “is seeking to initiate an EMD program in the FY27 time frame to develop and integrate an advanced sensor and potentially other capabilities onto the baseline E-7 platform, or an equivalent AMTI/BMC2 [airborne moving target indication/battle management command and control] platform,” according to an Apr. 15 Request for Information (RFI). “Following the EMD phase, the Government is considering retrofitting USAF E-7A aircraft with EMD modifications, producing new E-7 aircraft, or a combination of retrofit and new aircraft.”

Northrop Grumman said recently that the company, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), and Boeing flight tested at RAAF Williamstown improved combat identification for MESA.

The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies has advised the Air Force to add more than $5 billion in its fiscal 2026 budget request to buy 26 Wedgetails to replace the 16 E-3 AWACS planes “in hospice care” (Defense Daily, March 20).

“The existing E-7A Rapid Prototyping (RP) program is intended as a speed-to-ramp effort to resolve urgent capability gaps existing within the E-3 Sentry fleet,” according to the Apr. 15 RFI. “The government intentionally did not include emerging new capabilities in the RP effort. The government is interested in identifying industry partners to provide cutting-edge capabilities and technologies, potentially to include an advanced sensor (MESA replacement), advanced infrared sensor, Electronic Support Measures replacement, Electronic Warfare Self-Protection replacement, Tactical Targeting Network Technology, Link 16 High Power Amplifier (HPA), Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System connectivity, Combat Identification, next-generation Tactical Data Link, advanced missile data link capabilities, and other next-generation AMTI, BMC2, Alternative Position, Navigation, and Timing, and/or communications technologies.”

The Air Force Sustainment Center at Tinker AFB, Okla., is examining reduction of AWACS support costs through the Diminishing Manufacturing Sources Replacement of Avionics for Global Operations and Navigation (DRAGON) effort (Defense Daily, March 31).

DRAGON led to a reduction in the AWACS flight deck from four to three crew members “by eliminating the navigator position and incorporating a modern Flight Management System Suite with robust architecture,” including a modern flight management computer and large multi-function displays for flight and engine instruments, the Air Force has said.

Minotaur IV Used for NRO Mission from Vandenberg

The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), U.S. Space Force’s (USSF) Space Launch Delta 30, and USSF Space Systems Command’s small launch and targets division launched defense and intelligence payloads aboard NROL-174 mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., on Wednesday.

Carrying the payloads was a Northrop Grumman [NOC] Minotaur IV rocket in what NRO said was the first Minotaur launch for NRO from Vandenberg since 2011. A decommissioned Peacekeeper ICBM supplies Minotaur IV with solid rocket motors for its first three stages, and the rocket uses a commercial upper stage.

Previous Minotaur launches for the NRO include the NROL-111 and NROL-129 missions from Wallops Island, Va., in June 2021 and July 2020, respectively, and NROL-66 from Vandenberg in February 2011.

In addition to the NRO launches, the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center at Kirtland AFB, N.M. test flew a Minotaur carrying an unarmed Mk21A reentry vehicle by Lockheed Martin [LMT] for the Sentinel ICBM program last June 18 from Vandenberg.

NROL-174 is part of the NRO/SSC Rocket Systems Launch Program, which “focuses on the small launch market and primarily launches more risk-tolerant experimental, research and development, responsive space, and operational missions,” NRO said.

“NROL-174 is the third NRO mission launched from SSC RSLP’s Orbital/Suborbital Program-3 contract,” the agency said.

NRO said it has launched more than 150 satellites over the past two years for the agency’s proliferated architecture–the latest being the NROL-192 mission aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Vandenberg on Apr. 12 (Defense Daily, Apr. 14).

L3Harris Expands Payload Facility in Indiana to Meet Demand for Missile Defense Capabilities

L3Harris Technologies [LHX] completed a $125 million expansion at its payload manufacturing facility in Fort Wayne, Indiana, to support its work for the Space Development Agency (SDA) and the “Golden Dome” missile defense initiative. The facility will have capacity to produce 48 payloads per year when it is fully ramped up.

L3Harris has built payloads in the Fort Wayne facility since the 1960s. The facility focuses on infrared sensor payloads that serve national defense and civil weather, including the imager for NOAA’s GeoXO satellite system. The company’s heritage in weather payloads informed its missile defense capabilities, which is one of the few other missions that relies on real-time data from infrared sensors.

This expansion is part of a move toward productionizing space payloads instead of treating them as one-off, bespoke missions, Rob Mitrevski, vice president and general manager of Spectral Solutions at L3Harris Technologies, told sister publication

Via Satellite last week during Space Symposium.

“It’s very important to create that scale necessary, the producibility, the predictability, and the schedule confidence at rate that’s required,” he said.

Mitrevski said L3Harris is scaling up in missile warning and missile defense with investments in facilities, workforce, and supply chain. He said it was a “calculated risk” for the company to make this investment in increasing production.

“We knew the Golden Dome, or some variant of that need, would come,” Mitrevski said. “If you pay attention to the threats and pay attention to our near peer adversaries and the progress they’re making, their evolution, you can extrapolate how things are going to go. We knew the U.S. would respond as a nation, I think we’ve seen that buyer signal strengthen over the years.”

Mitrevski cites the $2.5 billion in backlog L3Harris has won in missile defense, although this is a new area of business for the company in recent years. L3Harris has five satellites on orbit and 34 satellites in development for the Space Development Agency’s Tracking Layer and the Missile Defense Agency’s Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS) program.

This investment in production comes as the U.S. is imposing tariffs on all countries and much higher tariffs on China. Mitrevski said that the company’s supply chain is primarily based in the U.S., and the company is assessing the full impact of tariffs.

The full impact is “unknown,” at this point, he said. “In our business a domestic supply chain is vitally important. There’s potential that the raw materials aspect will create some impact but we really don’t know yet. It’s still early in the process. We’re all talking about it, but there’s been no effect as of yet that we’ve seen.”

This story was first published by Via Satellite

Autonomous Technology Company Scout AI Exits Stealth With $15 Million Seed Round

Scout AI, a year-old startup developing an autonomous platform for defense robotics, on Wednesday emerged from stealth with an oversubscribed $15 million seed round led by Align Ventures and Booz Allen Hamilton

’s [BAH] ventures unit.

Fury is the name of Scout AI’s artificial intelligence-based Vision-Language-Action model that controls a robot’s actions, with the ultimate goal being to power multi-domain robot armies using human-level intelligence. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company says it trains Fury on human-level behavior, which makes it AI embodied, giving it situational, physical, and adaptive intelligence.

“At the core of Scout’s breakthrough is Fury, a defense-specific Vision-Language-Action foundation model engineered to transform every defense robot into an intelligent, autonomous agent,” Scout said in a statement. “Unlike traditional robotics software, Fury is an embodied AI system—capable of perceiving the physical world, interpreting natural language, and issuing real-time motor commands to act decisively even in communication and GPS-denied environments.”

Scout said it has received multiple Defense Department contracts. The company currently has two prototypes, the G01 unmanned ground vehicle and the A01 unmanned aerial vehicle, both of which are operating autonomously at Scout’s proving grounds in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

The company’s technology is designed to be modular and hardware-agnostics, able to run on a commercial off-the-shelf camera and low-power inference chip to rapidly integrated into existing and future robotic hardware systems.

Fury is designed for human-machine teaming.

“Physical AI is the most decisive military advantage of the century,” co-founder and CEO Colby Adcock said in a statement. “Our vision is one warfighter commanding many robots, seamlessly integrated into a unified team. That level of human-machine integration requires an AI brain like Fury that understands commander intent and can think, move, and collaborate like seasoned operators.”

Adcock has worked in private equity and is on the board of Figure AI, a humanoid robotics company. His co-founder, Collin Otis, is chief technology officer and was a founding engineering and director of autonomy and AI at Kodiak Robotics, and head of data science at Uber’s [UBER] former Advanced Technologies Group.

Other investors in the seed round include Draper Associates, Decisive Point Ventures, Perot Jain, Sigmas Group, Evolution VC, BVVC, Habitat Partners, Piedmont Capital Investments, FJ Labs, Revelry Venture Partners, Monte Carlo Capital, Expansion VC, and Gaingels.

USAF Offensive sUAS Program Surveys Industry for Multi-Domain Comms for Drone Swarms

The U.S. Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s Offensive Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) program (AFLCMC/WISS) at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio wants to hear from companies able to integrate low size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C) multi-domain communications and data relays on Group 2 and/or Group 3 UAS within 18 to 24 months.

Group 2 drones weigh between 21 and 55 pounds, Group 3 more than 55 but less than 1,320 pounds.

AFLCMC/WISS wants low SWaP-C radios, antennas, and down links with technology readiness levels of 7 or higher to integrate into Group 2 and/or Group 3 drones to provide “dynamic multi-domain communications capabilities/services within, and/or to, a sUAS swarm in contested and denied environments” and “data relay (ranging in size and complexity from simple status messages to full motion video) to/from stations inside denied and contested environments,” the Request for Information (RFI) said.

The U.S. government (USG) “will use the data gathered through this RFI process to inform USG acquisition strategies for initial and future capabilities and other efforts requiring Offensive sUAS, which may lead to contract awards,” the business notice said.

“This RFI informs sUAS capabilities that USG expects to begin integrating and fielding in 18–30 months,” according to the notice. “There is an expectation to field additional platforms beyond the initial effort. Should USG field initial operational systems, conceivable upgrade cycles could follow regularly. USG may replace any component or integrator during such cycles to maximize
operational capabilities with best-in-class technologies.”

Established last year, AFLCMC/WISS is under AFLCMC’s Air Force Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance and Special Operations Forces directorate.

L3Harris Technologies [LHX] and Shield AI said that they have developed a software-defined Distributed Spectrum Collaboration and Operations (DiSCO) electronic warfare (EW) battle management system to aid drone initiatives like DoD’s Replicator and the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft (Defense Daily, March 11).

For DiSCO, Shield AI has developed software algorithms under its Hivemind drone autonomy effort to enable “swarms of effectors,” while L3Harris has been working on the optimization of non-kinetic EW.

Air Force Special Operations Command’s top acquisition priority has been the Adaptive Airborne Enterprise to allow an aircrew to control multiple drones (Defense Daily, May 9, 2024).

Saronic Acquires Gulf Coast Shipbuilder; Introduces 150-Foot USV

Saronic on Wednesday said it has acquired Louisiana-based Gulf Craft, a small shipbuilder that gives it a strategic location on the Gulf Coast and facilities to immediately support development and production of the startup’s latest autonomous surface vessel (ASV), the 150-foot Marauder.

Saronic said the acquisition is foundational toward its vision of a larger waterside shipyard it calls Port Alpha that will feature advanced manufacturing capabilities for its future vessels (Defense Daily, Feb. 18). The Austin, Texas-based company’s current lineup of three ASVs run six-, 14-, and 24-feet in length.

Marauder’s design boasts a 40 metric ton payload capacity, a 3,500 nautical mile range or the ability to loiter for more than 30 days depending on the mission, a 12 knot cruise speed, 18-plus knot burst speed, and a price point far lower than legacy manned systems, Saronic said. The medium unmanned surface vessel will have the same autonomy stack as Saronic’s existing ASVs, the company said.

Design and development of the initial prototype are underway with plans to put it into the water within one year, with production units following shortly after, the company said. The medium ASV will use a conventional diesel powertrain and jet drives found on similarly-sized commercial and military vessels.

Saronic’s announcement of Marauder follows the emergence from stealth last week of Blue Water Autonomy, a Boston-based startup that is early days in the design and development of a 100-foot-plus class of low-cost multi-mission, ocean-going ASVs (

Defense Daily, April 11). Blue Water this month began testing its autonomy suite in the water.

The Gulf Craft acquisition provides Saronic 30 new employees and nearly 100 acres of space–25 used by the shipyard and other 65 for capacity expansion–adding to its current 520,000 square-feet of manufacturing and related space. Saronic plans to invest more than $250 million into its new shipyard for upgrades and new machinery, with a focus on creating a rapid and agile production system that can built up to 50 unmanned vessels per year.

Founded 60 years ago, Gulf Craft specialized in designing and building 100 to 200-foot aluminum hulled ships. The shipbuilder does not have an existing backlog and all capacity will be used for Saronic’s priorities.

The company expects to create more than 500 new jobs at the shipyard in the next three to four years.

“While we actively search for a home for Port Alpha, this acquisition gives us the immediate capacity to meet urgent customer needs for larger autonomous vessels and the flexibility to scale to address emerging commercial and defense applications of these advanced systems,” Dino Mavrookas, co-founder and CEO of Saronic, said in a statement.

Saronic said it plans to invest more than $2.5 billion to develop Port Alpha. The two-year-old company has raised $850 million in capital.

Sentinel To Have New Silos, Air Force Leaders Tell Town Halls

The Northrop Grumman [NOC] LGM-35A Sentinel ICBM, which has a significantly larger design than its predecessor 1960s-era Minuteman missile series, is to have new silos, U.S. Air Force leaders told community leaders during program town halls in Kimball, Neb., and Pine Bluffs, Wyo., on Apr. 1 and 2.

The Minuteman “silos are already really old so if we use them for Sentinel, they are going to be over a century old,” Col. James Rodriguez, Sentinel program infrastructure and deployment division director, said on Apr. 1. “There were a number of other issues that were driving costs to be quite large, and it was becoming prolifically expensive to try to renovate them, so sometimes it is just cheaper to build something new.”

Air Force leaders have previously not given a straight answer when asked whether Sentinel would need new silos and have downplayed the significance of new silo construction.

The provision of multiple warheads, countermeasures, and increased range to hit China means the Sentinel design is significantly larger than that of the current Boeing [BA] Minuteman III.

In February, Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s strategic forces panel, said that he believed that the Air Force would have to build new silos to house Sentinel (Defense Daily, Feb. 26).

The Air Force fielded 450 Minuteman siloes between 1962 and 1967, of which 50 are decommissioned but may be brought back for future testing. Experts have said that placing Sentinel in Minuteman silos may lead to several degrees of tilt in such silos.

Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) suggested this month that the Air Force may be able to re-use some Minuteman III silos for Sentinel and that the Air Force is increasingly discussing possible concurrent upgrades to house Sentinel at the three ICBM missile wings under Malmstrom AFB, Mont., F.E. Warren AFB, Wyo., and Minot AFB, N.D. (Defense Daily, Apr. 1).

“To the degree that it’s possible yet to modify the design of Sentinel to utilize existing silos, it would be a tremendous opportunity,” he said. “We’ll see. Some of them [silos] are gonna have to be [replaced]. Some of them are full of water.”

The Air Force plan has been to conduct sequential upgrades at the bases with Minot being the third and final base.

The first operational Minuteman fielded on Oct. 27, 1962 at Malmstrom during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) had planned to “renovate all 450 existing [Minuteman] launch facilities in the missile fields to like-new condition.”

In addition to the Apr. 1 and 2 public discussions in Kimball, Neb., and Pine Bluffs, Wyo., the Air Force held another Sentinel town hall, as scheduled, on March 31 in Raymer, Colo., but the latter’s remoteness led to a lower turnout and no press at the event, Glenn Robertson, a spokesman for the 90th Missile Wing at F.E. Warren, wrote in an email response to questions.

AFGSC said that more than 200 residents attended the three town halls.

For the town halls, “there were no transcripts or video…to ensure participation of the local public without fear of recording them,” Robertson wrote in an email.

Air Force Maj. Gen. Colin Connor, who heads the Sentinel Site Activation Task Force in his position as director of ICBM Modernization at Air Force Global Strike Command at Barksdale AFB, La., told the Pine Bluffs town hall that the Air Force plans to begin digging up the old, Hardened Intersite Cable System (HICS) copper wires for Minuteman III in 2027 to replace them with fiber optic cables for Sentinel by 2030.

Section 1638 of the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act created AFGSC’s Site Activation Task Force to provide the Sentinel program with missileers’ insights.

On Jan. 18 last year, the Air Force said that it notified Congress that Sentinel had breached Nunn-McCurdy guidelines, primarily due to construction design changes, and then DoD acquisition chief William LaPlante ordered a root-cause analysis. The latter led last summer to the DoD decision to continue the program, due to its stated importance to strategic deterrence, but also to the rescinding of the Sentinel Milestone B engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) go-ahead from 2020 (Defense Daily, July 8, 2024).

Last summer, the Air Force pegged Sentinel cost at $140.9 billion, 81 percent higher than the September 2020 estimate when the program was approved for EMD–a rise that DoD said has less to do with the missile than the command-and-control segment, including silos, launch centers, “and the process, duration, staffing, and facilities to execute the conversion from Minuteman III to Sentinel.”

Initial operational capability for Sentinel will now likely be years past the Air Force’s initial goal of May 2029.

Air Force plans have called for a Sentinel launch center for at least 24 of the missile alert facilities and for 3,100 miles of new utility corridor for Sentinel.

The civil works for Sentinel may also include hardening silos to account for improved accuracy of Russian and Chinese nuclear missiles.

AUV Developer Vatn Systems Employs Palantir To Scale Manufacturing

Joining other defense technology startups that are leveraging Palantir Technologies’ [PLTR] software manufacturing platform, Vatn Systems on Wednesday said they have partnered with the company to help as it transitions to production.

The two-year-old Rhode Island-based startup is developing autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) for defense and commercial uses. Vatn has been testing its AUVs in military exercises, including with the Navy, and said it has a dozen vehicles with government customers and more on order.

The partnership with Palantir will accelerate production, Vatn said.

“What it allows us to do is build, basically, a digital twin of our entire manufacturing process that allows us to better understand on every level what’s happening,” Nelson Mills, co-founder and CEO of Vatn, told Defense Daily on Monday ahead of the announcement. “Like, where are some supply chain hiccups? Where along our production are we having assembly issues? What points of failure are we experiencing? And to understand that in one central platform where all our data comes in and allows us to better respond to that and scale our manufacturing.”

Palantir’s artificial intelligence-powered Warp Speed technology is “unique” to the market and offers users a “competitive edge,” Mills said. The manufacturing platform features machine learning that will allows companies to “understand and improve your processes and automate it,” he said.

Last month Palantir announced partnerships with startups Epirus, Red Cat [RCAT], Saildrone, Saronic, and Ursa Major, and non-traditional defense company Sierra Nevada Corp. to deploy Warp Speed to bolster their manufacturing, optimize maintenance, and improve other aspects of their operations. Palantir has similar arrangements with Anduril Industries, L3Harris Technologies [LHX], and others.

Vatn last fall announced a $13 million seed round to expand its team. Among others, investors include Lockheed Martin [LMT], RTX [RTX], and Science Applications International Corp. [SAIC] (Defense Daily, Nov. 12, 2024). At that time, the company had 18 employees and now has 37, Mills said.

Skelmir 6, a six-inch diameter AUV that looks like a torpedo and weighs between 50 and 60 pounds, is Vatn’s first product. The AUV is priced to be expendable, but is retrievable, and can carry a payload up to 20 pounds with a range of 20 nautical miles. The company is planning to introduce additional products with longer ranges.

Vatn is working with various government customers and “all of them have a clear pathway toward a larger program,” Mills said.