Washington: Lockheed Martin plans to invest $50 million into California-based maritime drone manufacturer Saildrone, with the goal of equipping Lockheed’s air-to-ground missile launchers onto a Saildrone unmanned surface vessel, the companies announced.
“Work will begin immediately, applying an open architecture approach along with secure command and control capability to integrate Lockheed Martin’s [Joint Air-to-Ground Missile] Quad Launcher (JQL) system onto the Saildrone Surveyor platform,” according to a Lockheed statement. “Larger Saildrone vehicles are already in development to support significantly larger payloads and capabilities to include the Lockheed Martin Mk70 VLS launcher and thin line towed arrays.”
Live fire demonstrations are expected in 2026, the announcement added.
The arrangement pairs Lockheed’s missile launchers, which are ubiquitous throughout the Navy’s fleet, with Saildrone’s autonomous maritime drones, which have historically focused on unclassified surveillance missions.
“Together, we are combining the most sophisticated commercial and defence technologies to deliver a lethal naval solution at speed and scale. The nation needs this capability to maintain dominance over our adversaries, and we will deliver it,” said Stephanie Hill, president of Lockheed’s rotary and mission systems business.
The announcement is particularly significant for Saildrone, a relatively small startup that, up until 2020, mostly worked with civilian agencies, but has become increasingly prolific with the Navy and Coast Guard since first participating in the Rim of the Pacific Exercise in 2020 and Task Force 59 in 2021.
