Autonomous undersea vessel christened

Congressman Joe Courtney (CT-02), joined by Australian Ambassador Dr. Kevin Rudd, ThayerMahan Chairman and CEO Mike Connor, and Ocius CEO Dr. Robert Dane, christened a persistent unmanned undersea surveillance vessel that supports the objectives of AUKUS Pillar II, part of the trilateral security partnership between the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia.

The vessel, Groton, CT-based ThayerMahan’s Outpost TM001 delivers scalable wide-area maritime surveillance capability that mitigates a rapidly growing undersea threat. Outpost, which has been called ‘The future of our Navy’, augments traditional undersea warfare assets. It can be fielded in a fraction of the construction time, for a fraction of the cost.

Australia’s Ocius Technology Limited, based in Alexandria, manufactures Outpost’s 22-foot hull that is powered by solar, wind, and wave energy. The uncrewed surface vessel carries ThayerMahan’s deep-towed passive acoustic array and unrivalled processing technology, that provide near real-time actionable contact reports from anywhere around the globe.

Courtney referred to ThayerMahan Chairman and CEO Mike Connor, a retired U.S Navy Vice Admiral and Commander of the U.S. Sub Force, as a “prophet” for his early efforts to explain the need for and capabilities of unmanned vessels when he appeared before Courtney’s Seapower Subcommittee while at the Pentagon.

“Back then we didn’t know what [Mike Connor] was talking about, but obviously he was a prophet and ahead of his time,” Courtney told a crowd of military and industrial leaders during the christening. “Obviously the success of ThayerMahan, in collaboration not just locally in the submarine capital of the world in southeastern Connecticut and Rhode Island and now internationally, is another example of just how on target he and his amazing team of millennials and GenZers are. They are doing important work in ways that no one could imagine even recently.”

Outpost provides an immediate and rapid increase in Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) surveillance capacity. This creates a force multiplier for the aircraft, ships and submarines traditionally used for the mission, and it creates a path to success for AUKUS Pillar II.

Australian Ambassador to the United States, Dr Kevin Rudd, said: “The Outpost system reflects innovation writ large. It is a deployable, flexible, all-purpose platform powered by wind, solar and wave with multiple applications for civilian and military uses.”

Robert Dane, CEO and Executive Director of Ocius Technology, said the partnership with ThayerMahan represents a blending that will benefit multiple nations. “Our focus now is to work together to deliver this capability to a number of countries around the world supporting AUKUS, but also other countries,” Dane said, noting the rapidly changing geopolitical environment. “We have two companies with similar ideologies and an agile ability to deliver and that is what we are all about.”

Connor complimented the Ocius vessel design and manufacturing as “best-of-class”, and summarised the relationship between the companies. “They bring best-of-breed vessels, and we bring best-of-breed sonar together in one package.”

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