The Navy on Thursday said it aims to issue an open competitive solicitation for the Mining Expendable Delivery Unmanned Submarine Asset (MEDUSA) unmanned undersea vehicle (UUV) in the fourth quarter of this fiscal year, which means by Sept. 30.
A notice published Aug. 31 said the service’s Unmanned Maritime Systems Program Office (PMS 406) within Program Executive Office Unmanned and Small Combatants (PEO USC) is developing MEDUSA “to address the need for an advanced maritime mining system with long range offensive mining capabilities.”
The solicitation is planned to be a research and development effort that covers design, fabrication and testing of MEDUSA systems and risk reduction activities.
Last year, the Navy issued a Request For Information (RFI) seeking industry feedback on developing systems for the MEDUSA. At the time, the Navy said the UUV will be a “tactical clandestine mining system” that uses an expendable vehicle that can be launched from submarine torpedo tubes (Defense Daily, May 9, 2022).
The Navy initially started developing a MEDUSA prototype in fiscal year 2017 and in FY ‘21 built and tested a prototype vessel via a modified Hydroid Remus UUV. Since then, Hydroid was acquired by shipbuilder HII [HII].
The prototype used dummy payloads and a land-based launch facility with surface launched in-water demonstrations.
The RFI said the Navy aims for a contract award by the fourth quarter of FY ‘23 and delivery of four prototype units by the fourth quarter of FY ‘26.
According to Navy budget documents, MEDUSA is envisioned to be 21 inches in diameter, impulse launched from a torpedo tube, and will be expendable once all of its payloads are deployed.
This differs from the 15-inch diameter Razorback torpedo tube launch and recovery UUV variant that the Navy is developing, which will be recovered by submarines via the torpedo tubes.
While MEDUSA will deploy mines, Razorback has swappable payloads and is focused on autonomous ocean sensing/data collection.
The current draft pre-solicitation notice is meant to spur responses from interested parties for information and planning purposes and “to allow industry the opportunity to verify reasonableness and feasibility of the requirement, as well as to promote competition.”
All comments or questions related to the MEDUSA UV competition are due by Sept. 15.