Saronic has announced that its first 52ft Mirage uncrewed surface vessel (USV) is now afloat for the first time and will begin in-water trials.
The new Mirage drone vessel, which has just entered the water at the American firm’s test facility in Galveston, Texas, sits midway between the defence start-up’s 24ft Corsair and 180ft Marauder platforms.
Capable of at least 35 knots, Mirage essentially doubles the range and payload capacity of the Corsair; it’s capable of sailing more than 2,500 nautical miles, and has a maximum payload of 1.75 tons (3,500lb).
The new USV has been designed and built at Saronic’s headquarters in Austin, Texas, where work on the second Mirage hull is already underway. It runs on the same autonomy stack as Corsair and Marauder and can sail either fully autonomously or under remote human supervision via Saronic’s Echelon C2 platform.
CEO Dino Mavrookas commented: “We launched our first Marauder four weeks ago, and today we’re putting another vessel in the water. This cadence is what our production model was built to deliver .
“With Corsair, Mirage, and Marauder now in full production simultaneously, we are delivering a full family of autonomous surface vessels at the speed and scale that makes real adoption possible.”
Saronic recently hit the headlines after one of its Corsair USVs rescued the crew of a downed AH-64 Apache in waters off Oman in the Persian Gulf. The operation is thought to be the first example of a USV used for a search-and-rescue mission under combat conditions.
Navy Leaders reported in December that Saronic had won a $322 million contract from the U.S. Navy to provide it with an unspecified number of its Corsair uncrewed surface vessels (USVs).
At the start of last month Saronic also announced the commencement of in-water testing on its Marauder Medium Unmanned Surface Vessel (MUSV).
- You can read more details on the Mirage launch here