Home Americas US Navy issues preliminary RFP for medium UUV

US Navy issues preliminary RFP for medium UUV

Kingfish UUV
Sailors deploy an Mk18 Mod 2 underwater unmanned vehicle during an exercise in 2018. Photo: US Navy

The US Naval Sea Systems Command has released a solicitation for the design, development, test, and production of the medium unmanned underwater vehicle (MUUV).

Released on May 21, the solicitation will support the next generation of the Razorback unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) and the maritime expeditionary mine countermeasures UUV (MEMUUV) system.

A final request for proposals is scheduled to be announced by the end of September 2020.

The MUUV will be a modular, open systems, and open architecture UUV. In the Razorback torpedo tube launch & recovery (TTL&R) configuration, it will provide submarine-based autonomous oceanographic sensing and data collection in support of intelligence preparation of the operational environment. In the MEMUUV configuration, it will provide persistent surface-launched and -recovered mine countermeasures (MCM).

The notional MUUV will contain a common baseline vehicle architecture, including sensors and components, for the submarine and expeditionary configurations. Launch-and-recovery systems will reflect each configuration’s unique requirements and missions.

MEMUUV will be launched from navy and marine corps surface vessels, vessels of opportunity or land-based forward operating bases. The Razorback derives from the Navy’s submarine-launched littoral battlespace sensing autonomous undersea vehicle (submarine) effort which has two deployment configurations: dry deck shelter and TTL&R. Only TTL&R variants are included in the current solicitation.