Saronic, a defense-technology company based in Austin, Texas, has announced the Corsair, its largest autonomous surface vessel yet. It's a 24-ft (7.3-m) sleek ship with customizable capabilities that can be deployed in "the thousands" for the US Navy.
Think "drone" and you're likely to think of any one of the many autonomous machines that fly through the air. But there are surface-based ocean drone ships as well, and the US Department of Defense (DoD), through its Replicator initiative, is looking to stockpile them. According to Replicator's mission, the program "will deliver all-domain attritable autonomous systems to warfighters at a scale of multiple thousands across multiple warfighting domains, within 18-24 months, or by August 2025."
With an announcement this week, Saronic has signaled that it's ready to take up the challenge.
"At 24 feet, Corsair is the largest ASV in Saronic’s line of autonomous systems," says the company in a post on Medium. "Corsair is designed to meet the urgent operational requirements of the U.S. Navy and its allies, to deter adversaries, and serve as a force multiplier."
The ship can operate autonomously over a range of 1,000 nautical miles, has a payload capacity of 1,000 lb (454 kg) and can reach speeds of over 35 knots (40 mph). Each Corsair can operate on its own, or it can work together with more of its kind to function as a swarm. "Corsair can support a wide range of strategic blue-water operations," says the company, "from maritime domain awareness to delivery of kinetic and non-kinetic effects – extending naval power while keeping sailors out of harm's way."
Saronic says one of Corsair's main benefits is that the ship is completely customizable from its payload to the type of software and AI technology embedded on board.
“Corsair is the answer to our maritime forces’ need for an attritable autonomous platform that can be delivered to the fight in the hundreds or thousands without compromising on reliability, performance, or capability,” said Saronic co-founder and CEO, Dino Mavrookas. “With Corsair, we are ready to help the Navy realize its vision of a hybrid fleet of manned and unmanned systems.”
At a press conference, as reported by Breaking Defense, Saronic indicated that it is currently working on prototypes, but mass production is not far behind.
“We’re building five prototypes, all of which are currently in development,” Mavrookas told reporters. “We have done live demonstrations already with end users, and we are moving and ramping into high-rate production and manufacturing as we speak. So, we will be building hundreds and hundreds of Corsairs next year with the ability to scale that into the thousands.”
The company, which was founded in 2022, is certainly well funded enough to begin spooling up operations, having raised $175 million in series B funding in July.
The Corsairs will join Saronic's other vessels to provide the DoD with a choice of three ships in total from which to build its autonomous fleets. These include the Spyglass, a 6-ft-long (1.8-m) vessel, which is "equipped with advanced sensors and a configurable payload bay to enhance domain awareness and deliver diverse effects in contested waters." There's also the Cutlass, which clocks in at a length of 14 ft (4.3 m) and is "built to perform critical roles for the Joint Force, including deploying loitering munitions, connecting communications nodes in adaptive C2 networks, and identifying, classifying, and tracking other surface craft."
Source: Saronic
