Thirty medium uncrewed surface vessels, ten each from Galliano Marine Services, HII and Saronic Technologies, are headed into production for the U.S. Navy. The Navy announced the three agreements on Sept. 29, 2026, at an average procurement cost of $40 million per vessel. At that rate the 30 boats come to $1.2 billion, a total The War Zone calculated from the Navy’s figures.
Saronic’s entry is Marauder, which the company describes as a 180-foot dual-use autonomous ship. HII’s is ROMULUS. Galliano Marine Services, which does business as Edison Chouest, had not publicly announced its design as of the award, according to The War Zone.
The War Zone’s Sept. 29 report on the Medium Unmanned Surface Vessel (MUSV) awards quotes the Navy release directly: “Each agreement is for the procurement of 10 MUSV at an average procurement cost of $40 million per vessel.” Per the release, “production will begin immediately at shipyards in Loreauville, Houma, and Franklin, Louisiana, with deliveries starting as early as the fourth quarter of Fiscal Year 2027.”
“The awards mark a significant step forward in translating the strategic vision into a tangible fleet capability.” — Chris Miller, the Navy’s acting Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager for Robotic and Autonomous Systems
What Phase I at-sea testing measured
The production orders follow a Phase I competition at sea. Seven companies took part, according to The War Zone: Birdon, Galliano Marine Services, Huntington Ingalls Industries, Leidos, PacMar Technologies, Saronic Technologies and Sea Machines. The Navy release says the testing evaluated “the vessel’s ability to see and understand the surrounding maritime environment, how well the vessels navigated autonomously according to the international regulations for preventing collisions at sea, and the vessel’s ability to conduct a long-duration mission.”
Miller set out the endurance bar in plain numbers. Vessels “had to be able to execute [over] roughly 26 hours and over 360 nautical miles with only a single input during that time from a C2 [command and control] station allowed,” he said, as quoted by The War Zone. Under the program’s limits, designs cannot exceed 295 feet (90 meters) in length or 5,000 metric tons in displacement.
Not every Phase I entrant moved to production. Leidos, PAC MAR and Sea Machines “were determined to complete the project provided for in their prototype other transaction agreement and will receive a $15 million award as part of the previously established terms of the prototype OTs,” Naval Today reported Sept. 30 from the Navy’s announcement. The same report says the Navy released a MUSV Phase II Integration and Testing Call for Solutions on Sept. 23 to broaden the pool of designs.
Marauder and ROMULUS, by their builders’ accounts
Each winning company has described its own test results; these are company claims, not Navy findings. Saronic’s announcement, carried by Seapower magazine on Sept. 30, says Marauder completed more than 140 test scenarios without failure over eight consecutive days of round-the-clock operations. The trials included autonomous tracking and maneuvering around other vessels and passive-perception runs in which the ship had to detect and track contacts using only onboard sensors rather than active radar.
“Marauder went from initial design to on-the-water in under a year, and this evaluation demonstrated that the platform holds up under the Navy’s own toughest testing,” said Dino Mavrookas, Saronic’s CEO and co-founder.
HII’s Sept. 29 release on its 10 ROMULUS vessels says the company’s autonomy system completed a 420-nautical-mile endurance mission over 28 hours during Navy-monitored testing spanning 13 days. HII names Louisiana partners Breaux Brothers Enterprises, Halimar Shipyard and Bayou Metal Supply & Manufacturing for production, with Beier Integrated Systems and Incat Crowther also on the team.
Missions still undefined
What the boats will carry is the open question. “So far, the Navy has only offered limited insights into exactly what specific mission sets it wants the MUSVs to perform, even initially,” The War Zone wrote. The program has centered on containerized payloads. Rebecca Gassler, who was the Navy’s Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Robotic and Autonomous Systems until August, described the idea this way: “You could have any number of payloads inside those, and you basically are able to just swap them on.” Adm. Daryl Caudle, the Chief of Naval Operations, framed the buying approach around the same flexibility, saying it supports “rapidly integrating new sensors, weapons, and other mission payloads as technology and operational requirements change,” as reported by Naval Technology on Sept. 30.
That leaves a clear line between what has been shown and what is planned. Shown: autonomous navigation under collision rules and long-duration runs on minimal operator input during Phase I. Planned: production at three Louisiana yards and payloads yet to be specified. Phase II testing evaluations can begin as early as Nov. 16, according to The War Zone, with proposals assessed on a rolling basis over five years. First deliveries of the 30 production vessels are due as early as the fourth quarter of fiscal 2027.
Top image: The Navy’s Seahawk medium displacement unmanned surface vessel, an earlier prototype, in the Pacific, April 21, 2021. Image Credit: U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Shannon Renfroe — Public domain / Wikimedia Commons
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Combat Rated editors prior to publication.