The Navy announced May 29 that seven companies have advanced to at-sea prototype testing for its Medium Unmanned Surface Vessel (MUSV) marketplace, with trials running from June through October.
Chosen from more than two dozen submissions, the seven firms are Leidos, Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII), Sea Machines, Saronic Technologies, Galliano Marine Services, PacMar Technologies, and Birdon. Those that pass receive $15 million each and qualify for follow-on production, with the Navy targeting five to 10 operational MUSVs by fiscal year 2027.
Leidos’s Seahawk MUSV joined the Navy’s fleet in April and is scheduled to deploy with the USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group. “Leidos brings more than a decade of investment and operational experience in maritime autonomy,” said Conrad Chun, Leidos Defense communications vice president.
On April 14, @USNavy transitioned the Leidos-built Medium Unmanned Surface Vessel (MUSV) Seahawk into the operational fleet 🌊
Learn more about our autonomy and other maritime capabilities on CavasShips’ podcast ➡️ https://t.co/VMMaxvVanG pic.twitter.com/kEcrrA0LZF
— Leidos (@LeidosInc) April 20, 2026
HII’s Romulus family runs on the company’s Odyssey Autonomous Control System (ACS), which HII has deployed across Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard programs.
HII is proud to announce the @USNavy has selected our ROMULUS unmanned surface vessel (USV) to advance to the at-sea testing phase of the Medium Unmanned Surface Vessel (MUSV) program.
Read more in HII’s Newsroom: https://t.co/3DH0hTVU6Y pic.twitter.com/hcUlDxFnwK
— HII (@WeAreHII) June 2, 2026
Saronic launched its 180-foot Marauder on May 28, moving from design to on-water trials in under a year, a pace CEO Dino Mavrookas called unseen “in American shipbuilding since World War II.”
Galliano Marine Services operates as Gulf Coast shipbuilder Edison Chouest Offshore (ECO), which partnered with Anduril Industries in April to produce MUSVs domestically. Anduril’s hull design came from HD Hyundai Heavy Industries in South Korea, making it the only finalist with a vessel engineered abroad.
The marketplace replaced the Modular Attack Surface Craft (MASC) program in March and draws from roughly $2.1 billion in President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” signed in July 2025.
The Navy projects more than 30 MUSVs in the Indo-Pacific by 2030, up from roughly four today, Navy Capt. Garrett Miller, commodore of Surface Development Group 1, said in April.
