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Boeing has successfully delivered the first Orca extra-large uncrewed undersea vehicle (XLUUV) to the US Navy following acceptance testing completed in December 2023.
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Boeing’s new XLUUV, designated by the Navy as “Orca,” is a new class of autonomous submarine that can perform long-duration critical missions to achieve undersea maritime dominance in changing environments and contested waters.
As part of the ongoing development partnership with the US Navy, Orca has undergone several phases of at-sea testing, including above and below surface manoeuvres to demonstrate the vehicle’s unique capabilities.
Ann Stevens, Boeing Maritime and Intelligence Systems vice-president, welcomed this milestone delivery, saying, “This is the culmination of more than a decade of pioneering work, developing a long-range, fully autonomous undersea vehicle with a large payload capacity that can operate completely independently of a host vehicle.”
Orca is the result of more than 50 years of Boeing experience building and operating undersea vehicles. In 2012, Boeing initiated the design and development of Echo Voyager, a proof-of-concept XLUUV that began at-sea testing in 2017 and was a precursor to the US Navy’s Orca XLUUV competition.
“I’ve had the distinct pleasure of witnessing our team bring this first-of-its-kind capability to life, and I’m proud of their innovation, perseverance, and unwavering commitment which has yielded the most advanced and capable UUV in the world. With the Navy’s partnership, we look forward to continuing to deliver this game-changing vehicle to the fleet,” Stevens added.
Echo Voyager, the world’s only vehicle of its size and capability and has spent over 10,000 hours operating at sea and transited hundreds of nautical miles autonomously, serves as the basis of the Orca XLUUV delivered to the US Navy.
Echo Voyager’s range covers 6,500 nautical miles (12,000-plus kilometres) from a single fuel module, allowing the vehicle to perform long-endurance operations.
