Enabling the U.S. Navy to Scale Unmanned Surface Vessels Across the Fleet to Support Integrated Kill Webs and CJADC2.

Astrion’s expertise and experience in integration, testing, and operating complex autonomous capabilities at scale will drive robotic warfare

How does the U.S. Navy rapidly accelerate Medium Unmanned Surface Vessel (MUSV) adoption across the fleet to deliver critical capabilities needed in the battle for the Indo-Pacific region?  Today’s trusted core teams must be empowered to build out the necessary infrastructure to support the significant influx of MUSVs that are in the pipeline for tomorrow. The U.S. Navy’s 30-year shipbuilding plan highlights the procurement of 47 MUSVs through 2031 which require not only testing, operating, sustainment and training of those systems, but also all of the systems and people that interface with the MUSVs. This is a significant increase from the two Unmanned Surface Vessel (USVs) currently in the Navy’s fleet. The Navy can get there by leveraging the incredible work accomplished by the USV Program Sea Hunter and Seahawk team who have led the charge toward distributed maritime operations.

The Navy’s USV program demonstrates how long-endurance USVs can support distributed maritime operations today while informing broader expansion across vessel sizes, payloads, mission systems, and demonstrations.

Within the USV program, Astrion manages integration, testing, operations, sustainment, and modernization of complex autonomous and remote mission systems. On April 14, 2026, USV Seahawk transitioned from an experimental role as a research and development platform to the operational fleet under Unmanned Surface Vessel Squadron 1 (USVRON1). Astrion’s team was instrumental in driving that transition, from building the test and evaluation schedule that mapped key milestones to reach minimum viable product, to crewing and staffing the vessels during the thousands of hours of required at-sea testing. That experience positions Astrion to support the Navy as a lead partner for research, development test and evaluation (RDT&E), operations and sustainment, and modernization as USV capability expands from individual demonstrations to scalable fleet operations.

While mission systems sometimes fail in development, it matters more if failure occurs under real-world conditions, where systems must operate persistently, adapt in real time, and perform without interruption. Establishing the line between success or failure in autonomous systems takes this a step further because they must function successfully under operational conditions without human intervention. Any time a human intervenes in a process the maturity of the system may be questioned and its performance may lose merit.

The challenge

The challenge facing the Department of War (DOW) and the Navy is winning the fight in multi-domain operations (MDO) by leveraging Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO). This could be accomplished by employing attritable systems, USVs, unmanned underwater vehicles, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to spread lethality and sensing capabilities across the battlespace, minimizing the risk that our adversaries can effectively target and strike our high-value manned assets. USVs will continue to serve as persistent sensing platforms and will  deliver lethal and non-lethal effects from autonomous platforms operating across the DMO. Our aspirations to preserve human lives and the high-value assets they operate will only be attained by leveraging successful, fully operational, autonomous technologies at scale.

As the DOW expands its use of advanced autonomous systems and platforms, the challenges we face are no longer associated with simply developing capabilities, improving them, and delivering them to the warfighter. While industry must still develop, improve, and deliver these capabilities, the challenge lies in enabling the warfighter to understand and win the multi-domain fight. Industry must deliver a full understanding of autonomous capabilities and limitations in a package that the warfighter can understand and use, enabling successful prosecution of the mission set utilizing these autonomous capabilities via modernized battlespace management tools. Astrion has demonstrated that it can bring together multiple systems and capabilities from disparate vendors into a scalable cohesive whole that can be tested, trusted, sustained, and modernized over time. A level of command and control across a heterogeneous fleet of vessels is needed now more than ever. It isn’t sufficient to simply acquire vessels; a battlespace orchestrator is needed to go beyond system integration. Astrion’s team has ensured the success of the DUSV platforms as they’ve come online and is prepared to ensure integration into the battle fleet as production scales and the operational and tactical layers of the battlespace incorporate more sophisticated concepts of operations (CONOPS) that go well beyond today’s manned/unmanned teaming.

These challenges place new demands on how systems are developed, tested, and sustained. Success and the future of the MUSV program depend on the maturity of the team and its understanding of autonomous vessel CONOPS, which will be informed by leveraging lessons learned from existing programs.

Astrion’s role

Addressing these demands requires disciplined execution across research, development, testing, evaluation, operations, sustainment, and modernization. Within the USV program, Astrion plays a key role in enabling system performance and ongoing development through systems integration, test and evaluation (T&E), operations, and sustainment activities including:

• Training and preparing personnel for forward-deployed autonomous and remote operations, including scalable workforce approaches that support operational transition.
• Coordinating across multiple vendors and government stakeholders to integrate and test new hardware and software on multiple platforms.
• Executing software regression testing, installation, at-sea evaluation, pier side evaluation, and onboard debugging to identify issues early and reduce operational risk.
• Developing and documenting capability and limitation materials, standard operating procedures, concepts of operations, and protocols for autonomous and remote system operations.
• Validating system integration and performance in both test and real-world environments, from demonstrations through operational employment.
• Operationalizing autonomous systems by converting test outputs, operator feedback, and engineering data into reliable real-world capability.
• Road mapping technology development and integration to align autonomy, payload, communications, casualty recovery, and sustainment needs.
• Implementing scalable human-intervention processes that support autonomy maturation while maintaining appropriate operational guardrails.
• Contributing operational insight, supporting validation activities, and ensuring updates meet mission performance, reliability, cybersecurity, sustainment, and modernization requirements.

Astrion also supports ongoing vessel and system updates to maintain and improve performance, including updates to autonomy software, perception sensors, navigation, communications, remote mission systems, payload interfaces, and vessel systems. Efforts include engineering workflows such as engineering change proposals, which move system updates from concept to deployment. These efforts require continuous coordination across government stakeholders and industry partners and are directly relevant to USV expansion at multiple vessel scales. Astrion has developed processes and techniques to test, develop, and refine systems under real-world conditions, pulling the technology forward towards its eventual end use case.

Operational impact

For more than 10 years, Astrion has successfully tested, operated, and sustained unmanned/autonomous systems for the Navy. This proven partnership clearly demonstrates Astrion’s ability to deliver results with impact anywhere in the capability development lifecycle from RDT&E to initial operating capability (IOC):

• Enabled extended deployment of Sea Hunter and Seahawk, including a seven-month mission in the Western Pacific integrated with operational units and the first deployment of large USVs to the U.S. 7th Fleet Area of Responsibility as part of Integrated Battle Problem 23.2.
• Supported more than 42,000 nautical miles traveled, including more than 38,000 nautical miles of autonomous operations, more than 1,000 hours of unmanned payload operations, and a fully autonomous trans-Pacific transit completed with zero operator interventions.
• Improved system reliability and remote troubleshooting capability, reducing the need for onboard maintenance and repair while extending propulsion system overhaul intervals from 4,000 to 7,000 hours and contributing to more than $600,000 in projected lifecycle cost savings.
• Sustained operational momentum by executing complex maintenance in operational environments, including critical propulsion repairs completed in five days with no impact to operational schedules and component reconditioning that saved up to $180,000 while reducing downtime.
• Advanced autonomy, sensor, navigation, communications, and payload performance through precision navigation and timing upgrades, satellite-to-acoustic communications, UAV-USV teaming, and a shore-based systems integration lab that supports digital twin testing and reduces costly at-sea rework.
• Integrated more than 20 modular payloads, including remotely operated acoustic sensing capabilities, cross-domain solutions, and classified data safeguarding and protection, demonstrating the flexibility of USVs to adapt to evolving mission requirements.
• Supported rapid system maturation through incremental capability improvements, participation in major naval exercises including Rim of the Pacific, Surface Warfare Advanced Tactical Training, and Large-Scale Exercise 2021, and a six-week training program for Navy mine countermeasures operators.
• Over the course of a one-year period, the team completed two major shipyard periods which included 10 engineering change requests to re-baseline USV Sea Hunter to meet key minimum viable produce milestones for its transition to the operational Navy.
• The project team was recognized with the 2024 Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific Team Achievement Award for Systems Engineering Operational Support.

As autonomous systems continue to evolve, mission success will depend on the ability to integrate, test, operate, sustain, and modernize under real-world conditions. Astrion’s past performance demonstrates how disciplined execution turns advanced capability into reliable operational performance, positioning the company well to support the Navy’s USV strategy as it expands across platforms, payloads, systems, and concepts of operations.

To learn more about Astrion’s capabilities in T&E, systems engineering and integration, and sustainment, visit https://astrion.us/capabilities/.