Saildrone Adds Lethality to its USVs in Deal With Lockheed Martin

California-based tech company Saildrone has been making long-endurance, sail-powered USVs for the U.S. Navy and other government customers for years, and it is taking the logical next step for a successful naval supplier: in partnership with defense prime Lockheed Martin, it is going to start fielding its first lethal platforms.

With an investment of $50 million from Lockheed, Saildrone will field USV models built for a more comprehensive mission set, including fleet defense, undersea surveillance, reconnaissance and attack. Specifically, the initial plan is to install a Lockheed JAGM launcher onto the Saildrone Surveyor model, the world's largest uncrewed vessel built for ocean mapping. JAGM is a successor to Hellfire, the ubiquitous antitank missile found throughout the U.S. armed forces' smaller platforms. The new missile has a range of about 18 kilometers, fire-and-forget capability, and three seeker modes for all-weather lethality. Lockheed has designed a vertical-launch quad pack for shipboard applications of JAGM, and it just conducted its first shoreside launch test at Yuma Proving Grounds in August.

Saildrone's vessels are not notable for speed, but they do have impressive multi-month endurance, a capability that is difficult to replicate with a diesel-powered unmanned vessel. All diesel engines eventually require care and feeding; by comparison, a wing sail has a nearly unlimited duty cycle.

The Lockheed partnership extends to more intensive R&D work on larger Saildrone-based designs, which will support heavier payloads - like a towed-array sonar or a Lockheed Mk 70 VLS, a containerized version of the standard Mk 41 VLS system found on Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. With a Mk 70 on board, a supersized Saildrone would have up to four long range missiles on deck, including the SM-series family of air defense missiles or Tomahawk long range cruise missiles.

Four cells is far less than the 32-cell magazine on a Constellation-class frigate - but a flotilla of eight hulls would provide equivalent carrying capacity, with none of the risks and costs of onboard personnel, and with eight times the number of targets for the enemy to deal with. The large vessel design is "highly evolved," says Saildrone founder and CEO Richard Jenkins, and construction will begin at Austal USA in Q1 2026. This would be early enough to be relevant to preparations for the Davidson Window, the U.S. Navy's "ready by 2027" Taiwan Strait capability planning timeline.

According to Jenkins, armed applications were part of Saildrone's plans from the very beginning of its journey, starting back in the early 2010s. At the time, the U.S. Navy was uninterested in small-craft solutions; this was long before Ukraine's Black Sea naval campaign and the development of China's long-range strike capabilities, both of which have amplified the attractiveness of small, attritable platforms. Since naval applications were lacking demand at the time, Saildrone turned to surveying and developed a strong business relationship with NOAA, gaining experience in harsh and demanding ocean environments. On contract for NOAA, it has circumnavigated Antarctica, set a transatlantic speed record for a USV, and kept a drone at sea unmaintained for more than a year. That toughened technology is now available for upsized, up-armed uses.

"Now is the time to augment our systems with firepower. Enough firepower to not only create a real deterrent for adversaries, but if the worst-case scenario were to happen, to deliver overwhelming strike capability to win decisively," Jenkins said in a statement.