Saronic launches unmanned vessels less than a year after initial designs

With a range of over 5,000 nautical miles, the Marauder Medium Unmanned Surface Vessel (MUSV) is designed for a range of defence and commercial needs, such as logistics, research, maritime awareness, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance efforts.

Being designed, built and launched in less than a year marks a major achievement for Saronic and represents a “pace not seen in American shipbuilding since World War II”, the company said.

“I’m incredibly proud of our team for achieving this milestone,” said Saronic’s co-founder and CEO, Dino Mavrookas.

“Designing, building and launching an entire new class of ships in under a year is a feat the American shipbuilding industry hasn’t seen in generations; it’s what happens when design, production and manufacturing are fully integrated under one roof.

“With multiple hulls already underway and our shipyard continuing to grow, this is what revitalising American shipbuilding actually looks like – autonomous ships delivered at speed and scale, with the production capacity to back it up.”

Built at the company’s Franklin (Louisiana) shipbuilding facility, all aspects of design and development occur at the one place, which “enables tighter iteration, faster decision making and compounding improvements”.

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The expanded capacity of the MUSV is expected to be finalised by the end of this year, with Saronic’s Franklin shipyard being able to deliver up to 20 vessels annually.

The vessels feature a new software fleet intelligence platform that keeps human visibility on the ship’s operations through real time data.

The US Navy has committed $3 billion in funding for the MUSV program over the next five years.