US DARPA launches USV Defiant

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has launched the USX-1 Defiant, a medium unmanned surface vessel (USV) designed for autonomous operations at sea. 

As informed, Defiant is a 180’, 240-metric-ton lightship that will undergo extensive in-water testing, both dockside and at sea.  Construction of the prototype unmanned surface vessel was completed in February this year.

The vessel is scheduled to depart for a multi-month at-sea demonstration in spring 2025. The unit is part of the No Manning Required Ship (NOMARS) program. The program’s aim is to challenge the traditional naval architecture model, designing a sea frame (the ship without mission systems) from the ground up with no provision, allowance, or expectation for humans on board.

According to DARPA, by removing the human element from all ship design considerations, the program intends to demonstrate significant advantages, including “size, cost, at-sea reliability, greater hydrodynamic efficiency, survivability to sea-state, and survivability to adversary actions through stealth considerations and tampering resistance”.

With scaled production, NOMARS has the potential to ‘efficiently’ deliver a distributed USV fleet, it was highlighted.

To remind, in January this year, DARPA completed the first test of at-sea refueling designed for use with the unmanned surface vessel Defiant.