Orca (AUV)

The Orca is an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) that is under development by Boeing and Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) for the United States Navy.

The Orca dates back to September 2017, when the Navy issued contracts worth about US$40 million each to Boeing, which had partnered earlier in the year with HII to build uncrewed submarines, and Lockheed Martin to develop competing designs for an extra-large unmanned undersea vehicle (XLUUV[a]) capable of autonomous operation on missions up to several months in duration.

[2] In February 2019, the Navy awarded the Boeing/HII consortium a $43 million contract to begin work on building four of their XLUUVs, the design of which would be based on Boeing's earlier AUV Echo Voyager.

[3] The following month, the Navy added a fifth vehicle to the order, with the total value of the contract reaching $274.4 million.

[5] The basic Orca design shares a 51 feet (16 m) length with Echo Voyager, but the Orca will incorporate a more modular construction, primarily for the capability to be built with an additional payload module of up to 34 feet (10 m) long and a capacity of 8 tonnes (8,000 kg) for a total length of 85 feet (26 m).