Saronic Secures $392M Unmanned-Vessel Contract From the U.S. Navy

 

Autonomous vessel company Saronic has secured a U.S. Navy production contract worth $392 million for its Corsair unmanned vessel, a 24-foot speedboat with a 1,000-pound payload. It is the entry point for an ever-growing series of vessels in the startup's lineup, which extends from a six-foot mini-drone up to an 180-foot aluminum vessel capable of carrying containerized payloads. The contract was first reported by DefenseScoop in August, but the announcement provides additional details.

"With Saronic, we went from prototype to production in under a year. That’s rapid innovation, real competition, and combat power in sailors’ and marines’ hands, not on PowerPoints," Navy Secretary John Phelan said in a social media statement. 

Corsair parallels the capabilities of Ukraine's Magura-series, the small remotely-controlled boats that have changed the course of the naval conflict in the Black Sea. Roughly comparable to the Magura in payload, speed and range, the Corsair is intended for both kinetic and non-kinetic naval missions.

In advance of the contract announcement, Saronic said that it would be investing $300 million in its own shipyard in Franklin, Louisiana and adding 1,500 new jobs to its payroll. Saronic is spending on fabrication capabilities for future production of Marauder, its largest variant, even though it does not yet hold a contract for that model. That degree of speed and confidence contrasts with the traditional defense shipbuilding process, which generally follows a series of government-funded design and procurement steps that take years before a contract award is announced. 

"Because we have invested heavily in our own production infrastructure and capacity, we can deliver these new capabilities at the speed and quantity the mission requires," Saronic said in a statement. 

The contract award is part of a broader Pentagon push towards unmanned systems. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered all the service branches to move quickly on adoption of autonomous technology and to cut red tape to speed up procurement. Navy Secretary Phelan held up the contract with Saronic as an example. "Prototype to production in under 12 months. The Saronic OTA proves how we’ll build a hybrid manned-unmanned Fleet: open competition, real contracts, real hardware for Sailors and Marines not slides. This is now the standard," Phelan said.