Lockheed Martin invests in Saildrone to accelerate USV capabilities for the US Navy

Lockheed Martin announced on 29 October 2025 that it has made a USD 50 million investment in Saildrone, which it described as a global leader in maritime autonomous systems.

The strategic collaboration is intended to deliver commercially available unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) equipped with lethal, combat-proven defence technology. The companies will collaborate with a goal of delivering integrations – including on-water, live-fire demonstrations – in 2026.

“This commercial relationship marries the world’s most sophisticated and trusted defense technology with the most capable and operationally tested USV technology,” Lockheed Martin stated, adding that the combination will be key to realising the US Navy’s USV vision for critical missions such as fleet defence, undersea surveillance, reconnaissance and attack.

Work under the collaboration is beginning immediately, applying an open-architecture approach along with secure command-and-control capability to integrate Lockheed Martin’s Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM) Quad Launcher (JQL) system onto the Saildrone Surveyor platform.

Saildrone USVs have been accomplishing complex maritime missions in the remote ocean since 2013. First deployed by the US Navy in 2021, they are currently operational today in combat theatres around the world.

Lockheed Martin says it is investing in Saildrone to accelerate and de-risk deployment of urgently needed defence technologies. The investment will establish a collaborative relationship between Lockheed Martin and Saildrone systems integration teams to accelerate manufacture of new, larger platforms and integrate Lockheed Martin payloads onto a variety of platforms. The latter could include the Lockheed Martin Mk70 Vertical Launch System and thin-line towed arrays.

Stephanie C Hill, president of Lockheed Martin’s Rotary and Mission Systems business, was quoted by the company as stating, “Lockheed Martin and Saildrone are leading the way to answer President Trump’s call for the defense industry to act differently and leverage the strength of all of industry for our national defense. Together, we are combining the most sophisticated commercial and defense technologies to deliver a lethal naval solution at speed and scale. The nation needs this capability to maintain dominance over our adversaries, and we will deliver it.”

Richard Jenkins, founder and CEO at Saildrone, added, “For the last 10 years we have focused on evolving the reliability, endurance and autonomy of the Saildrone platform, which has been demonstrated in over two million nautical miles of active customer missions. With our technology proven, de-risked and mission ready, now is the right time to augment Saildrone USVs with sophisticated payloads to meet warfighter needs. This collaboration will give Saildrone the tools we need to transform the capabilities of our platforms, to include electronic warfare, anti-submarine warfare, sophisticated surveillance and reconnaissance, as well as deploying kinetic effects, all seamlessly integrated with Lockheed Martin’s trusted command, control and fire control systems.”