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Saildrone Surveyor Gen 2
Saildrone
Not yet assessed
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- Verified autonomy
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Saildrone Surveyor Gen 2
SaildroneThe Saildrone Surveyor Gen 2 is a 20-meter (65-foot), 15-ton unmanned surface vehicle (USV) built to ABS Light Warship code, designed for open-ocean hydrographic surveys, maritime domain awareness, and defense missions including ASW and ISR. It is solar- and wind-powered with a 300 lb payload capacity, and is operated by Saildrone (founded 2012, headquartered in Alameda, CA), which has accumulated 12+ years of operational history and 2M+ nautical miles across its fleet. The platform has attracted significant investment including a $50M strategic investment from Lockheed Martin and a $60M Danish-led round, with total funding exceeding $345M. Vendor sources consistently claim fully autonomous, long-duration operation with no human intervention required for the task itself; independent evidence does not contradict this but does confirm that launch/recovery requires Saildrone personnel (3 personnel, 5 days), which constitutes operational setup rather than task performance. The autonomy level is best characterized as Supervised-Autonomous, given that the system executes its survey/ISR tasks independently but operates within a command-and-control framework with near-real-time data streaming to human operators who can monitor and intervene.
Availability
Specification
- displacement_weight
- 15 tons
- payload_capacity
- 300 lbs
- power_generation
- Solar and wind
Price
No public price — contact the supplier for a quote.
Good · Bad · Ugly
Evidence-graded claims from the Saildrone deep report
Saildrone holds a $37M Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) with the US Coast Guard and a separate $15.5M USCG contract deploying 16 Voyagers in the Great Lakes and Northeast.
The $37M BPA is reported by Tectonic Defense [6], an independent defense trade publication, and the GSA contract document [5] independently confirms Saildrone's government contracting activity; the $15.5M/16-Voyager contract is cited in official press releases [4][12] but the BPA figure has independent trade-press corroboration.
from Saildrone deep report →Lockheed Martin invested $50M in Saildrone and is integrating Saildrone USVs into its naval systems for US Navy applications.
The $50M investment and systems integration partnership are confirmed by an independent Lockheed Martin press release [14], a primary corporate source distinct from Saildrone's own PR, providing credible third-party corroboration of both the financial commitment and the naval integration intent; specific US Navy program outcomes remain unverified.
from Saildrone deep report →
Saildrone USVs operate autonomously for up to 1 year without human teleoperation, executing navigation, data collection, and surveillance tasks independently.
The 1-year endurance figure originates solely from vendor/commerce sources [7][8]; the aggregate 60,000 days at sea across the fleet [3] is consistent with long-duration missions but no independent third party has verified any single continuous 1-year autonomous run.
from Saildrone deep report →Saildrone USVs are capable of operating in GPS-denied environments.
GPS-denied operation capability is cited in the Tectonic Defense article [6] in the context of the DHS/USCG BPA, but this is a defense trade publication repeating a vendor-context claim with no independent test data or government evaluation report cited.
from Saildrone deep report →
The newly announced Spectre platform (April 2026) is capable of anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and high-speed kinetic/VLS strike operations.
Spectre was announced April 20, 2026 [2]; no independent testing, deployment, third-party validation, or government acceptance of kinetic strike or ASW capability has been cited in any source — all capability claims are vendor-only at this stage.
from Saildrone deep report →NOAA lost access to Saildrone's hurricane forecasting tool due to a procurement failure, disrupting the active partnership.
This claim originates from a single low-confidence Reddit community post [15] and is directly contradicted by an official Saildrone press release describing an active NOAA partnership with 10 USVs deployed for a 5th hurricane season [4][12]; the Reddit source is unverified and uncorroborated.
from Saildrone deep report →
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