DARPA takes its long-duration Manta undersea drone for a test-dip

DARPA's extended-duration unmanned undersea vehicle (UUV) is having its first aquatic excursion to test if this naval drone has wings, er, fins. The splash test was part of DARPA's Manta Ray program for America's next-generation of undersea power projection, with PacMar Technologies and Northrop Grumman each building their own …

[Bitsminer]

Really?

There is a lot of competition in this "space" (sorry).

Some can do 5000km tours undersea with a few surfacing events to communicate or reset their inertial nav. Off the shelf, today. Powered by hydrogen fuel cells. No, I don't have any connection with cellula.com but they used to be nearby.

Looks like another military-industrial-national-pride-techno-powered-fiscal-farce (*). Glad I'm not a taxpayer in that country.

(*) Not to pick on the Americans: every country has their military-subsidy-complex.

[Julz]

Re: Really?

Those few surfacing events are the killer, especially for the UAV.

[Anonymous Coward]

Buzzword-compliant

'"This test provides important insights into key systems, allows us to validate assumptions and models, and gives us valuable data in preparation for our upcoming full-scale at-sea demonstrations," said Dr Kyle Woerner, Manta Ray program manager at DARPA.'

Translation: This is a basic test, we're hoping to learn something. (Without saying what is being tested or what they hope to learn.)