WASHINGTON – U.S. Navy unmanned vehicles experts are asking L3Harris Technologies Inc. to build a prototype Medium Unmanned Surface Vehicle (MUSV) for intelligence gathering and electronic warfare (EW) missions under terms of a $35 million contract announced Monday.
Officials of the Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington are asking the L3Harris Technologies Unmanned Maritime Systems division in Broussard, La., to build a prototype MUSV, with options for eight more that collectively could be worth as much as $281.4 million.
The MUSV is to be a pier-launched, self-deploying, modular open-systems architecture surface vessel capable of autonomous safe navigation and mission execution. It will be 45 to 190 feet long, with displacement of about 500 tons -- or about the size of a U.S. Coast Guard inland construction tender.
MUSVs will help the Navy deploy intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and EW capabilities, and provide distributed situational awareness and sensing to the fleet. L3Harris prevailed over four other bidders for this contract.
The prototype MUSVs will be for experiments before the Navy moves into a follow-on effort to refine the program. L3Harris is to complete the first prototype MUSV as early as late 2022.On this contract L3Harris will do the work in Morgan City, Jeanerette, New Orleans, and Lafayette, La.; Arlington, Va.; Worthington, Ohio; and Gautier, Miss., and should be finished by December 2022.
For more information contact the L3Harris Technologies Unmanned Maritime Systems division online at https://www.l-3mps.com/maritimesystems, or Naval Sea Systems Command at www.navsea.navy.mil.
