WASHINGTON — A Navy team led by the Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division Newport and the Program Executive Office for Unmanned and Small Combatants conducted a vehicle christening for the first Snakehead Large Displacement Unmanned Undersea Vehicle prototype Feb. 2 at the Narragansett Bay Test Facility in Newport, Rhode Island, PEO USC said Feb. 11.
Snakehead is a modular, reconfigurable, multi-mission LDUUV deployed from submarine large ocean interfaces. It is equipped with a government-owned architecture, mission autonomy capabilities and vehicle software, employing innovation in the areas of hull materials and lithium-ion battery certification. Deployed from a submarine dry deck shelter, Snakehead provides guidance and control, navigation, situational awareness, propulsion, maneuvering and sensors in support of undersea missions.
The Navy continues to invest in a family of unmanned undersea vehicles to meet the mission requirements for maintaining undersea domain superiority. Snakehead is the Navy’s largest submarine-launched UUV, providing increased endurance, depth capability, and payload capacity beyond small and medium UUVs.
