JOSEPH TREVITHICK
We are finally getting a clear idea of just how big Northrop Grumman’s Manta Ray submersible drone is, with satellite images showing it in port looking like something that just landed on Tatooine. Manta Ray is being developed under a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program that is focused on demonstrating a new category of very-long-endurance uncrewed naval platform that could be configured to perform a host of different missions. You can read more about what is known about the design, which had already been shown to be much larger than was originally understood, in our past reporting here.
Satellite images taken in November 2023 and April of this year that are now available through Google Earth show the Manta Ray docked at the Port Hueneme naval base in California. Port Hueneme, which is part of the U.S. Navy’s larger Naval Base Ventura County, is home to the Naval Surface Warfare Center-Port Hueneme Division (NSWC PHD) and is a major research and development and test and evaluation hub.
Manta Ray’s ‘wingspan’ is around 45 feet and it has an overall length of 33 feet from what can now be seen in the satellite images. For comparison, Boeing’s Echo Voyager underwater vehicle (UUV), from which the larger and still-in-development Orca design for the U.S. Navy is derived, is 51 feet long, but also is much narrower. The torpedo-like REMUS 600, one of the largest operational UUVs in Navy service currently, is just 10.6 feet long and 12.75 inches in diameter.
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