Orca undersea vehicle delivered to U.S. Navy by Boeing
NewsDecember 22, 2023
HUNTINGTON BEACH, California. Boeing has delivered the first Orca Extra Large Uncrewed Undersea Vehicle (XLUUV) to the U.S. Navy, following the completion of acceptance testing earlier this month, the company announced in a statement.
The Orca XLUUV represents a new class of autonomous submarine designed for extended duration missions to maintain undersea maritime dominance, especially in evolving and contested marine environments, the statement reads.
It is a fully autonomous undersea vehicle that is capable of operating independently from any host vehicle, the company says. Development of Orca began more than a decade ago as engineers sought to create a long-range, autonomous undersea vehicle with substantial payload capacity.
The Orca's design evolution can be traced back to Boeing's Echo Voyager, a prototype XLUUV that started sea trials in 2017 and laid the groundwork for the Orca XLUUV project. The Echo Voyager accumulated over 10,000 hours of operation at sea and covered hundreds of nautical miles autonomously, the company says.
