The Triton a-sail.
Last week's quick run to the Deep South was occasioned by a chance to observe a demonstration of the Triton autonomous underwater and surface vehicle, which is becoming a US Navy Program of Record. It did so without going through the crazy, expensive Pentagon procurement process; it was built independently and then proved that it satisfied requirements by being subjected to intensive testing.
Submerging.
It's a pretty neat piece of kit. I won't go into details about its uses for obvious reasons, but I'm glad we are the ones who will have the thing.
5 comments:
Thanks for this - Gulfport is just down the road a piece. I do love the "Agnostic to payloads" descriptor - such a great phrase.
Yeah, that's one of the neat things about it. They can take a lot of different technology, from commercial-off-the-shelf stuff like Starlink to purpose-designed military technology made by big contractors like Lockheed. The team in Gulfport just figures out how to "marinize" it, meaning making it waterproof and capable of handling the pressures at depth. Whatever you want it to do, it can probably do.
It’s good to hear that “Can do” is still an American concept.
Larry
A far cry, too, from the submarine races in the Kankakee River every First of April when I was a boy.
Eric Hines
I have only seen one other submarine with a sail. It was a research vessel on a long transit from Alaska south, and a sail was rigged for surface travel- to cut fuel costs, maybe?
The sail in the photo here looks like photo voltaic cells?
Post a Comment