ThayerMahan and Ocius have christened a persistent unmanned undersea surveillance vessel that supports the objectives of AUKUS Pillar II, part of the trilateral security partnership between the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia. Congressman Joe Courtney was joined by Australian Ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd, ThayerMahan Chairman and CEO Mike Connor, and Ocius CEO and Executive Director Robert Dane, for the christening.
“The Outpost system reflects innovation writ large. It is a deployable, flexible, all-purpose platform powered by wind, solar and wave with multiple applications for civilian and military uses," Rudd said.
The vessel, Groton, ThayerMahan’s Outpost TM001 will provide a scalable wide-area maritime surveillance capability that will reduce a rapidly growing undersea threat.
"Our focus now is to work together to deliver this capability to a number of countries around the world supporting AUKUS, but also other countries,” Dane said, noting the rapidly changing geopolitical environment. “We have two companies with similar ideologies and an agile ability to deliver and that is what we are all about," Dane stated.
Australia’s Ocius Technology Limited, based in Alexandria, manufactures Outpost’s 22-foot hull. The Outpost is powered by solar, wind, and wave energy. The uncrewed surface vessel carries ThayerMahan’s deep-towed passive acoustic array and processing technology.