Northrop Grumman’s Manta Ray Submersible Drone Spotted in Google Satellite Image
June 24th, 2024It’s fascinating how the autonomous death robots can harvest energy from the environment, giving them “near unlimited” range. They can also “hibernate” on the seafloor:
In order to achieve this, Northrop’s demonstration vehicle features “energy-saving technologies,” the exact nature of which remain murky, allowing it to anchor on the seafloor and hibernate in a low-power state, Northrop claims.
However, along with Seatrec, a renewable-energy company, Northrop has also designed energy-harvesting technology ostensibly capable of powering Manta Ray over near-unlimited distances and durations.
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DARPA/Northrop Grumman Manta Ray https://t.co/xv2j4cJVhb pic.twitter.com/DWBOLwcRKo
— cryptogon (@cryptogon) June 25, 2024
Via: The Warzone:
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.
