Lockheed Martin is investing $50 million in maritime drone maker Saildrone to integrate its Joint Air-to-Ground Missile Quad Launcher onto Saildrone’s Surveyor unmanned vessel, with live-fire tests planned for 2026. The partnership marks Saildrone’s shift from civilian to defense applications, aiming to create armed autonomous naval drones. The project, currently self-funded, supports the Navy’s move toward hybrid fleets combining manned and unmanned systems. Read the full press release:

Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) today announced a $50 million investment in Saildrone, a global leader in maritime autonomous systems. This strategic collaboration will deliver commercially available unmanned surface vehicles (USV) equipped with lethal, combat-proven defense technology. The companies will collaborate with a goal of delivering integrations, including on-water, live fire demonstrations, in 2026.

Why it Matters

This commercial relationship marries the world’s most sophisticated and trusted defense technology with the most capable and operationally tested USV technology. This combination will be key to realizing the U.S. Navy’s USV vision for critical missions such as fleet defense, undersea surveillance, reconnaissance, and attack. Work will begin immediately, applying an open architecture approach along with secure command and control capability to integrate Lockheed Martin’s JAGM Quad Launcher (JQL) system onto the Saildrone Surveyor platform.

Larger Saildrone vehicles are already in development to support significantly larger payloads and capabilities to include the Lockheed Martin Mk70 VLS launcher and thin line towed arrays.

Expert Perspectives

Stephanie C. Hill, president, Rotary and Mission Systems, Lockheed Martin:

“Lockheed Martin and Saildrone are leading the way to answer President Trump’s call for the defense industry to act differently and leverage the strength of all of industry for our national defense. Together, we are combining the most sophisticated commercial and defense technologies to deliver a lethal naval solution at speed and scale. The nation needs this capability to maintain dominance over our adversaries, and we will deliver it.”

Richard Jenkins, founder and CEO, Saildrone:

“For the last 10 years we have focused on evolving the reliability, endurance and autonomy of the Saildrone platform, which has been demonstrated in over 2 million nautical miles of active customer missions. With our technology proven, de-risked and mission ready, now is the right time to augment Saildrone USVs with sophisticated payloads to meet warfighter needs. This collaboration will give Saildrone the tools we need to transform the capabilities of our platforms, to include electronic warfare, anti-submarine warfare, sophisticated surveillance and reconnaissance, as well as deploying kinetic effects, all seamlessly integrated with Lockheed Martin’s trusted command, control and fire control systems.”

Additional Information

Fast Fielding of Commercial Technology for Defense: Saildrone USVs have been accomplishing complex maritime missions in the remote ocean since 2013. First deployed by the U.S. Navy in 2021, they are currently operational today, working 24/7/365 alongside American Sailors in combat theaters around the world. This commercial relationship will harness Saildrone’s decade-plus of commercial expertise to quickly field new defense applications. Saildrone will maintain all shipbuilding responsibilities and Lockheed Martin will serve as lead mission integrator.

Investing Ahead of Need and Accelerating Capability: Lockheed Martin is investing in Saildrone to accelerate and de-risk deployment of urgently needed defense technologies. The investment will establish a collaborative relationship between Lockheed Martin and Saildrone systems integration teams to accelerate manufacture of new larger platforms and integrate Lockheed Martin payloads onto a variety of platforms. Lockheed Martin is also investing in its existing products to facilitate fully autonomous operations.

Ready Now: The companies are focusing on integrating ready-now, proven capabilities with Saildrone USVs to get unmatched lethality into the hands of warfighters as soon as possible.

Powering Economic Growth: Developing these transformational USVs will create jobs at Austal USA on the coast of the Gulf of America, where Saildrone’s larger systems are produced. However, this work is shipyard-agnostic; as we scale, it has the potential to power economic growth at all of America’s shipyards and across the wider maritime and defense industrial bases.

About Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin is a global defense technology company driving innovation and advancing scientific discovery. Our all-domain mission solutions and 21st Century Security^® vision accelerate the delivery of transformative technologies to ensure those we serve always stay ahead of ready. More information at Lockheedmartin.com.

About Saildrone

Saildrone is a maritime defense company with a relentless passion for performance. Built to operate in the world’s harshest environments, Saildrone’s autonomous systems deliver payload effects and persistent, wide-area intelligence, enabling informed decisions across the spectrum of defense missions. Harnessing AI, advanced sensor suites, and renewable power for unmatched endurance at sea, Saildrone delivers superior multi-domain impact—from power projection to persistent ISR to real-time threat detection and tracking—while reducing cost and risk. With proven operational success across the world’s oceans, Saildrone is advancing the frontier of autonomous maritime operations to give decision-makers and warfighters the enduring advantage to outpace adversaries today and build tomorrow’s most decisive capabilities.

Read more here.