The US Navy has held a christening ceremony for the first prototype Snakehead Large Displacement Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (LDUUV) that will launch on undersea missions from submarines.
A team led by the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) Division Newport and the Program Executive Office for Unmanned and Small Combatants (PEO USC) christened the prototype on February 2 at the Narragansett Bay Test Facility in Newport, RI.
As a modular, reconfigurable, multi-mission LDUUV, Snakehead will be deployed from a submarine dry deck shelter, providing guidance and control, navigation, situational awareness, propulsion, maneuvering and sensors in support of undersea missions.
According to the navy, Snakehead is innovative in the areas of hull materials, lithium-ion battery certification, and submarine launch and recovery.
Christopher DelMastro, head of Division Newport’s Undersea Warfare Platforms and Payload Integration Department, served as master of ceremonies for the vehicle’s christening.
“During the winter of 2004, a UUV team from NUWC was at this very pier demonstrating the utility of large vehicles to inform the Navy’s future unmanned vision,” DelMastro said. “Today we have a new team — the Snakehead team — comprised of talented individuals representing the warfare centers, university laboratories and industry. It was very challenging at times and it was a long and difficult path to get here, but today you succeeded in delivering many firsts for the Navy.”
Representing the Chief of Naval Operations Director of Undersea Warfare was Adam Outlaw, head of the Subsea and Seabed Warfare Branch, who has worked on trying to establish, resource and defend a Large Displacement program for the past 14 years through various budget pressures and mission priorities.
“This program is older than my oldest kid. This is a big deal for me,” Outlaw said. “I can’t wait to see LDUUV in the water.”
According to the navy, Snakehead is equipped with a government-owned architecture, mission autonomy capabilities and vehicle software, employing innovation in the areas of hull materials and lithium-ion battery certification.
Snakehead is the Navy’s largest submarine-launched UUV, providing increased endurance, depth capability, and payload capacity beyond small and medium UUVs.
The service christened the LDUUV after first releasing a request for proposals for the vehicle in late 2020. Back then, NAVSEA said that initial prototypes would be designed to support intelligence preparation of the operating environment (IPOE) missions, while future vehicle missions may include deployment of various payloads.
