The US Navy has tidied up after itself by, for the first time, launching and recovering a Yellow Moray Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV) through the standard torpedo tube of a Virginia class nuclear attack submarine.
Robots have been deployed from submarines since the 1990s, usually for reconnaissance and mine countermeasure applications, but this has generally been a bit of an involved process where the UUV had to be carried in a special module called a dry shelter on the deck of the submarine's casing or launched from a torpedo tube on a one-way mission.
The ideal for submarine commanders is a robot that doesn't need special handling and can be loaded aboard like a torpedo, then launched from a standard torpedo tube and recovered through the same tube after its mission has been completed.
On a deployment to the US European Command (EUCOM) area of operations in Norway in February 2025, the USS Delaware (SSN 791), a Block III Virginia class fast attack submarine made the breakthrough when it managed to deploy and retrieve a Yellow Moray UUV through a torpedo tube three times on sorties that lasted up to 10 hours each.
Built by Huntington Ingalls Industries, the Yellow Moray is a variant of the company's REMUS 600 UUV that's been adapted to Navy specifications for long-duration, high-endurance missions, as well as the ability to leave and return through a torpedo tube without the assistance of divers.
With a length of 10.7 ft (3.25 m), a diameter of 12.6 in (32 cm), and weighing in at about 530 lb (240 kg), it runs on batteries at depths of up to 2,000 ft (600 m) at a cruising speed of eight knots (9 mph, 15 km/h).
Its modular architecture allows it to carry synthetic aperture sonar, side-scan sonar, Conductivity Temperature Depth (CTD) sensors, Doppler Velocity Logs (DVL), and inertial navigation systems for a wide variety of missions, including seabed mapping, mine countermeasures, and reconnaissance in GPS-denied areas. This, combined with its unique launch and recovery capability, makes it suitable for missions too dangerous for humans or that require a high degree of stealth or discretion.
The Yellow Moray is being developed in partnership with Australia and Britain as part of the AUKUS Pillar II agreement. The British version is known as Project SCYLLA.
"[USS] Delaware is just the beginning," said Commander Submarine Forces, Vice Admiral Rob Gaucher. "We plan to continue to deploy submarines with robotic and autonomous system capability worldwide so we can give more options to our Combatant Commanders by enhancing the capability of our SSNs. This capability allows us to extend our reach with additional sensors at both shallower and deeper depths than a manned submarine can access. It reduces risk to the submarine by performing dull, dirty, and dangerous missions with the UUV, and the Yellow Moray system reduces risk to our divers since we can launch and recover via a torpedo tube."
Source: US Navy
