3 Louisiana Shipyards to Build 30 Drone Ships in $1.2B Navy MUSV Deal
Saronic’s Marauder. Saronic photo
Three Louisiana-based shipyards will build unmanned surface vessels for the U.S. Navy following recent at-sea testing, the service announced Tuesday.
The three companies – Saronic, HII and Galliano Marine Service – will each build 10 medium unmanned surface vessels, or MUSVs, at about $40 million per hull, the Navy’s acting direct reporting portfolio manager for robotic and autonomous systems Chris Miller told reporters in a virtual roundtable.
The Navy issued the awards using other transaction authorities but did not specify how much each company received. A service news release described the $40 million figure as an average cost per vessel. The funding comes from the reconciliation legislation known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that Congress passed last year.
“The phase one production awards were based on the optimal mix of autonomy performance, design, production schedule and cost,” Miller said during Tuesday’s call. “The 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.”
Miller was referring to the location of the three yards. Breaux Brothers, which is partnered with HII, is based in Loureauville, in Iberia Parish. HII is also working with Halimar Shipyard in Morgan City to build its Romulus MUSVs. Galliano Marine Service, which also does business as Edison Chouest, is based in Houma, La. Saronic is building in Franklin, La., at the yard formerly known as Gulf Craft that the company has poured hundreds of millions of dollars in for an
expansion, USNI News reported.
HII Romulus concept art
The Navy’s requirements for phase one called for a vessel that could travel for 2,500 nautical miles at 25 knots in sea state 4, while transporting payloads up to 25 metric tons across at least two 40-foot shipping containers.
The contract announcement comes after several weeks of at-sea testing that concluded this month.
“The test was that they had to be able to execute roughly 26 hours in over 360 nautical miles with only a single input during that time from a [command and control] station allowed,” Miller said of the testing requirements. “It basically demonstrated that the vessel could run for an excess of 24 hours at an extended range with very minimal input from the actual operator from a C2 station.”
The six companies that met the testing parameters will each receive $15 million and go into the Defense Department’s drone marketplace, Miller said.
Seven companies took part in the tests after making it to the prototype phase
in May. In addition to the three companies that won the production awards, Birdon, Leidos, PacMar Technologies and Sea Machines also participated. Birdon is the only company that did not successfully meet the requirements.
Miller said Birdon has a “viable path” to get into the marketplace in the future as the Navy prepares for a second phase of the MUSV program.
“They really got a later start and I think if they had been given more time, they would have been able to successfully get there,” he said. “We will work with them and I want to help them be successful.”
Last week, the Navy put out a solicitation for MUSV phase two, which Miller said aims to bring more types of unmanned vessels into the marketplace.
“What I’m trying to do is also give more industry opportunities for companies that have something ready to go,” he said. “Obviously, with phase one, there were some more challenging requirements that they had to meet and so I’m trying to back off of those so that I can have a healthy, competitive industrial base and really use that to help us identify near-term opportunities to meet our operational demands.”
The service’s requirements allow for a wider variety of craft and require less payload. The vessel can be a maximum of 295 feet long and must be able to operate for 10 days and survive in sea state 6, according to a draft requirements document reviewed by USNI News. Noting that the high speed mandate for phase one led to some difficulties, Miller said phase two does not have a high-speed or refueling-at-sea requirement.
“The phase two solicitation allows entrants to compete and existing vendors to submit updated product blocks and modular payload configurations,” Miller said. “Testing evaluations will begin as early as November 16 and proposals will be assessed on a continually rolling basis over the next five years.”
Miller declined to comment on the ongoing lawsuit that two other companies – Blue Water Autonomy and Saildrone – filed against the Navy following the prototype awards for phase one.
“We are prepared to handle whatever decision that the judge decides,” he said. “But I really don’t want to get into specifics of that ongoing litigation.”
The two companies claim the Navy did not follow its own selection criteria when picking the awardees.
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