US Navy's Orca Undersea Drone Completes First 1,000-Mile Autonomous Patrol

The US Navy has completed its first long-range mission with an Orca extra-large uncrewed undersea vehicle, the service disclosed on August 15, 2026. Run by the Program Executive Office for Unmanned Small Combatants, the vehicle patrolled for more than 1,000 nautical miles across the eastern Pacific during July, a first in the program's history.

"The Pacific Submarine Force is heavily investing in unmanned capabilities to augment our manned submarines," said Rear Admiral Chris Cavanaugh, commander of the Pacific Submarine Force. The Navy is working two payloads onto the type: the Hunter mining system, and a standoff arrangement for launching a heavyweight torpedo.

Orca is a 26-meter hybrid diesel-electric autonomous vehicle built by Boeing with Huntington Ingalls Industries, designed around a modular payload bay for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, mine warfare, seabed warfare and expeditionary support. The consortium won a $43 million contract for four vehicles in February 2019, with a fifth added the following month; the first was accepted by Naval Sea Systems Command in December 2023 and the second, XLE2, was christened in March 2026.

The program has since moved out of experimentation. The Navy's May 2026 shipbuilding plan carries Orca as a procurement line rather than a prototype effort, funding two vehicles in fiscal 2027 against a target of 16 through fiscal 2031. Separately, the service selected Kongsberg and Oceaneering to develop a second extra-large vehicle, CAMP XLUUV, to a similar 1,000-mile endurance requirement.

The United States is not alone in the category, though the field is small and the vehicles are not equivalent. Australia is furthest along with the 12-meter Ghost Shark, developed with Anduril and ordered into production for the Royal Australian Navy. Russia's Poseidon is often counted alongside them but belongs to a different class of weapon: a nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed intercontinental torpedo rather than a reusable payload truck.

The distances involved are what make the type attractive to the United States Navy in the Pacific, where the transit from Guam or Hawaii consumes days of a crewed submarine's patrol time. An uncrewed hull that can cover that ground on its own, then loiter, mine or listen without a crew at risk, is the argument the Navy has been making for the program since 2019. The 1,000-mile patrol is the first demonstration that the argument holds in the water rather than on paper.

Neither the departure and arrival points of the transit nor the vehicle's endurance margin were disclosed. The Navy has not said when Orca will deploy operationally.