Huntington Ingalls wins submarine UUV contract

Huntington Ingalls Industries said April 27 that the Defense Innovation Unit awarded it a contract for a submarine torpedo-tube launch-and-recovery system for REMUS underwater drones. (hii.com) The system is designed to autonomously launch and recover HII’s REMUS unmanned underwater vehicles from U.S. Navy submarines through a torpedo tube. HII said the setup builds on its work in manned-unmanned submarine teaming. (hii.com) (navalnews.com) A torpedo-tube launch system is the hardware and software that lets a submarine push a drone out of the same tube used for weapons, then bring it back aboard underwater. That matters because a boat can send a robot ahead for sensing or mine-hunting without exposing the crewed submarine. (hii.com) (ir.hii.com) HII tied the new award to earlier Navy operations using its REMUS vehicles with submarines. In July 2025, the company said its REMUS 620 had been validated for torpedo-tube deployment after the USS Delaware completed a forward-deployed launch-and-recovery of a Yellow Moray vehicle based on the REMUS 600. (hii.com 1) (hii.com 2) The contract also lands as HII is already supplying the Navy with a different REMUS-based program. The Defense Innovation Unit said in 2023 that HII’s REMUS 300 won a production contract for the Navy’s Lionfish small-class unmanned underwater vehicle program, with a ceiling of $347.8 million. (diu.mil 1) (diu.mil 2) Defense Innovation Unit and Navy officials have been pushing faster fielding of commercial undersea systems for mine countermeasures, intelligence and other missions. DIU said in 2024 that underwater autonomy and sensing are central to contested, long-range operations. (diu.mil 1) (diu.mil 2) HII did not disclose the dollar value of the new torpedo-tube launch-and-recovery contract in its April 27 release. The company said the work will support autonomous deployment and retrieval of REMUS vehicles from U.S. Navy submarines. (hii.com) The award gives HII a new piece of the Navy’s undersea drone stack: not just the vehicle, but the mechanism that gets it in and out of a submarine without coming to the surface. (hii.com)