The U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command has awarded Leidos a contract to design and build a medium-size unmanned undersea vehicle.
The single award, cost-plus-fixed-fee contract is valued at approximately $358 million if all options are exercised.
“Our decades of experience fielding unmanned technology coupled with our familiarity with the ever-changing needs of the fleet, enables us to provide this critical capability to our warfighters at speed and scale,” said Mike Rickels, Leidos senior vice president of C4ISR Ssolutions. “We look forward to building upon our long-standing relationship with the Navy and supporting their critical national security mission.”
The medium unmanned undersea vehicle will support intelligence preparation of the operational environment and provide submarine-based autonomous oceanographic sensing and data collection for the Navy. The vehicle will also provide surface-launched and recovered mine countermeasures.
Leidos will work with several partners on this initiative, including L3Harris Technologies. Work will be performed primarily in Lynnwood, Washington.
“This partnership with the Leidos team provides the Navy with an advanced, agile unmanned undersea vehicle system that leverages our proven Iver technology,” said Rosemary Chapdelaine, president of maritime at L3Harris. “The Leidos and L3Harris team successfully recovered AUVs through a submarine torpedo tube and we’re excited to bring this dynamic launch and recovery capability to real-world missions.”