U.S. Navy Unveils Unmanned Centerpiece of Golden Fleet Initiative

Another vessel in the U.S. Navy’s rapid acquisition Golden Fleet initiative has been unveiled, with production-ready systems skipping traditional prototyping phases for production unit deliveries by 2027.

The U.S. Navy announced its Medium Unmanned Surface Vessel (MUSV) Family of Systems (FoS) this morning, opening another avenue of Golden Fleet procurement and force design that aims to deliver several production-ready, multi-role ships capable of working with the Chief of Naval Operations’ ‘containerized capability campaign plan’.

Rebecca Gassler, Portfolio Acquisition Executive, Robotic and Autonomous Systems (RAS), and Capt. Jeremiah Daley, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy, RAS, briefed reporters on the new type of ship in a media roundtable on Thursday.

“We have as of 7am opened the MUSV marketplace to accelerate autonomous capability to the fleet,” Gassler told reporters, describing a new marketplace of capabilities that can be marketed directly to the Portfolio Acquisition Executive office. The marketplace is part of the Navy’s intent to do business differently. “The intent is to qualify as many MUSV vendors as we can,” Gassler said.

MUSV replaces the Modular Attack Surface Craft (MASC) prototyping effort announced last year by the U.S. Navy, expanding the possible concept of operations when Navy officials became aware of the depth and breadth of industry investment into systems going far beyond MASC requirements and capabilities.

The U.S. Navy’s MUSV will carry at least two 40-foot ISO container-style payloads side-by-side, according to documents released in the marketplace solicitation on SAM.gov. With a broader requirement laid out by the service for ships, larger payloads are possible across different vendors. “Inside containers you could have a sensor, repair equipment, or any number of payloads that can be swapped like a container ship,” Gassler said.

“MASC was set up for a single use case and a single number of vessels. As we look across Golden Fleet, and look across where we could use these vessels, we bring ourselves to realize there’s a number of missions we could use these vessels for.”

MUSV will allow the U.S. Navy to operate with a wider array of containerized systems that have been deployed to the fleet in recent years. The service has tested long-range missile systems and anti-ballistic missile interceptors from unmanned ships and representative unmanned platforms in various tests over the past five years. The capability goes beyond the scope of MASC that held guardrails to each ship variant in the prototyping effort.

“We are looking at specific mission profiles, some require more complex autonomy,” Gassler said. “MUSV was tailored for a specific mission in the fleet. We have a much wider requirement for these vessels [compared to MASC] as a part of the Golden Fleet.”

The service is anticipating a dramatically shortened test campaign through this summer, rounding out all validation and unmanned systems testing in-line with COLREGs that define at-sea maneuvering to avoid collisions. “On water tests must be completed by the end of this year. Through the summer the team will be testing these boats. Production vessels should be delivered in FY27,” Gassler said.

Documents published alongside the media briefing show a requirement to deliver between five and ten MUSVs to the fleet through FY2027.

“MUSV is the unmanned centerpiece of global fleet.”

Secretary of the Navy John Phelan announced the new ship class in a social media post on X on Thursday, calling the new MASC FoS a response to a rapidly changing character of warfare.

“The Department of the Navy is adapting its acquisition system to deliver capability to our warfighters faster. We are harnessing the talent and ingenuity of the American tech sector by launching a market competition for the Medium Unmanned Surface Vessel (MUSV) Family of Systems,” Phelan said in a statement provided to Naval News. “This new approach will leverage private investment and accelerate the delivery of real capabilities to the Fleet. We will reward the companies who are able to deliver capability at the speed of relevance.”