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Lockheed has created an underwater drone that clings to ships like a lamprey. And when released, it launches torpedoes

February 20, 2026 by usatoday24

The lamprey is a fish that has survived 360 million years thanks to a simple strategy: sticking to its prey to suck its blood. Lockheed Martin has taken that idea literally to name its new weapon, and the analogy is quite literal. The new thing from Lockheed is called Lamprey Multi-Mission Autonomous Undersea Vehicle (MMAUV). It is an underwater drone just over 7 meters long, capable of traveling attached to an allied ship or submarine with a lamprey-like system. While attached to the host ship, it can recharge its batteries using its built-in hydrogen generator. Stealth or attack The Lamprey MMAUV does practically everything, although it is primarily designed for covert missions. It can remain on the seabed, monitoring the enemy without being detected thanks to its acoustic signature profile. practically invisible when sonar. When the time comes to act, the Lamprey can do almost anything: it deploys decoys to confuse the opponent, it is equipped with anti-submarine torpedoes and, if it rises to the surface, it can also launch aerial drones. What makes the Lamprey especially striking is that it concentrates in a single system capabilities that until now were distributed across different platforms: surveillance, anti-submarine warfare, deception, attack and aerial reconnaissance. It can operate in a swarm coordinating with other unmanned systems. And it can do so autonomously, making decisions without direct human intervention. Autonomous submarines The Lamprey will not be the United States’ first unmanned underwater vehicle. There are antecedents like Boeing Orca submarinewith the difference that it cost eight years and 885 million dollars to develop it, all so that today it is not clear if it will end up becoming a program in the US Navy. The Lamprey has been funded internally, which Lockheed vice president Paul Lemmo said has allowed them to “iterate at lightning speed and deliver to the Navy a truly multi-purpose weapon that detects, disrupts, deceives and attacks on its own.” Furthermore, he presumes that Its cost is significantly lower than that of other manned platforms. But the United States is not the only power exploring unmanned vehicles. China has been developing its own fleet of underwater drones for some time and at the military parade in September 2025 presented the AJX002an unmanned underwater vehicle between 18 and 20 meters capable of operating autonomously, laying mines and networking with other attack systems. In Xataka | The US wants to give up bringing the most valuable samples collected on Mars. Lockheed promises to do it for less than half Image | Lockheed

Lockheed Martin has had an idea to make the Black Hawk a more lethal weapon. He removed the cabin and made it autonomous

October 15, 2025 by usatoday24

During the annual fair of the Association of the United States Army, The Black Hawk reappeared unrecognizable. The helicopter that has accumulated decades of service lost its cabin and controls to gain a bow that opens into two doors and makes way for an expanded hold. The new name is U-Hawk and the conversion is carried out by Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin company. Within ten months, a UH-60L became an unmanned prototype with autonomy architecture, presented for the first time in public at AUSA. The U-Hawk was officially shown on October 13, converted from a former UH-60L of the US Army. According to Lockheed Martinthe project went from concept to demonstrator in that period and is in the validation phase before its first flight, scheduled for 2026. For now, the development has been financed internally by Sikorsky and is supported by the company’s previous experience in flight automation. From Black Hawk to U-Hawk: the old helicopter that is reborn without a cabin The most visible change is in the bow. Where controls and instrumentation were once concentrated, there are now two type gates clamshell that open to the sides and a motorized ramp that allows loading and unloading even with the rotors running. Integrate a system fly-by-wire third generation together with MATRIX, Sikorsky’s autonomy technology that coordinates sensors, cameras and algorithms to manage flight without human intervention. The redesign provides 25% more useful space compared to a conventional UH-60L. The extension of the front fuselage not only frees up space, it also multiplies cargo options. The U-Hawk can carry up to 3,175 kilos inside and lift another 4,080 kilos using the external hook, just like a conventional Black Hawk, but with more room for bulky objects. The warehouse supports four standard JMIC containers, twice as many as before, or a full pod of six HIMARS rockets. It can also accommodate two Naval Strike Missiles anti-ship missiles and an unmanned ground vehicle that enters and exits via its own ramp. One of the most striking new features is the internal launch system that Sikorsky calls quiver. This module, installed in the warehouse, can house between 24 and 50 drones or loitering munitionsready to be deployed in mid-flight. Each payload can be configured for surveillance, reconnaissance or electronic warfare tasks, and the system supports mixed combinations depending on the mission. The company maintains that this design will allow the U-Hawk to act autonomously before the arrival of troops, clearing or analyzing the terrain with its own means. Autonomy is one of the strong points of the U-Hawk. According to Lockheed Martin, it can cover up to 1,600 nautical miles without assistance, about 2,960 kilometers, and stay in flight for up to 14 hours without refueling. The company indicates that it can carry internal tanks to extend the range or time on station, but has not specified whether they are necessary to achieve these maximum figures. In any case, the operating margin presented by these data is unusual for a helicopter of this class. Sikorsky describes the U-Hawk as a forward reinforcement of the air assault. In a typical mission, the helicopter would take off before the troops and release several launched effects for reconnaissance or attack. It would then land, deploy an unmanned ground vehicle and rise again without human intervention. This sequence seeks to reduce the exposure of soldiers and open a path in hostile areas, with an approach that also contemplates non-military uses such as support in fires or natural disasters. Sikorsky wants to make operating a U-Hawk as simple as using an app. Operators enter mission objectives from a tablet, and MATRIX software calculates the route, controls takeoff, and manages the flight autonomously. The level of intervention can be modified depending on the circumstances, from closer remote monitoring to minimal supervision. Additionally, the system recognizes whether it is in civil or military space and adjusts its behavior. The U-Hawk was also born as a commitment to efficiency. Sikorsky is taking advantage UH-60L fuselages retired of the US Army, which it replaces flight systems and electronics with its own simpler and lower cost versions. The company claims that this vertical integration, by manufacturing its own management computers and actuators, reduces the total cost of the system and facilitates its maintenance. Being based on the H-60 family, it also inherits a fairly consolidated supply chain. If the schedule is met, the first flight of the U-Hawk will take place in 2026. It will be the decisive step to check whether full autonomy can be integrated into the H-60 fleet, a model that the US Army plans to keep operational until at least 2070. The idea of converting a classic helicopter into an unmanned platform points to a future in which machines with and without pilots coexist. Whether this vision is translated into a new generation of aircraft will depend on how this first prototype works. Images | Lockheed Martin In Xataka | A new army has arrived to put order in the Arctic: an F-35 squadron that does not belong to China, Russia or the United States

The US wants to give up bringing the most valuable samples collected on Mars. Lockheed promises to do it for less than half

July 8, 2025 by usatoday24

Since February 2021, The Rover Perseverance patiently travels the Jezero crateran old river basin on the surface of Mars. Over there, where millions of years ago the water flowedNASA Robot It has been collecting fragments of rock and Martian dust With a very specific objective: Find signs of past life. It is not any mission. Is, According to NASA itselfthe first step of an ambitious plan to bring intact samples from another planet. For more than three years, Perseverance has done his job in silence and the samples that Now rest inside of small sealed tubes, carefully deposited on the Martian surface or stored aboard the Rover itself. From space, bread crumbs would look like a trace drawn through a desert planet, hoping to be collected. A truncated promise The plan, known as Mars Sample ReturnI had to send another ship to Mars, launch from there a rocket with the samples and return them to the Earth for analysis in laboratories. But the project began to crumble. An independent review raised the cost estimated until 11,000 million dollars and delayed the possible return of the samples until 2040. In May, the new US administration presented its first budget draft: proposes to cut 24 % of NASA’s financing and cancel Mars Sample Return for considering it an exorbitant cost program. The plan must still go through Congress, but marks a clear turn: the menions manned to deep space are prioritized, such as Artemisand the projects with great budget and scarce immediate return are frozen. With the current budget cut and without guarantees of continuity, NASA decided to reexamine its options. As explained by the former administrator Bill Nelsontwo more viable alternative routes were being evaluated: one that takes advantage of the “Sky Crane” type landing system used successfully in the Curiosity and Perseverance Rovers, and another that opens the door to new proposals from the private sector. Lockheed Martin’s letter Amid the budget uncertainty, one of the great space contractors in the United States has decided to move file. Lockheed Martin, with half a century of experience in missions to Mars, has presented NASA a proposal to execute the Mars Return mission with a radically different approach: for less than 3,000 million dollars and under a fixed price contract. The change is not less. Faced with the traditional model, full of budgetary risks and with multiple public actors involved, Lockheed promises a simpler architecture. Its proposal includes a more compact landing module, based on the ship Insight that already touched Martiano soil in 2018a lighter and lighter ascent vehicle – designed to be the first to take off from another planet – and a system of re -entry to the land derived from missions such as Genesis, Stardust and Osiris-Rex. It is a commitment goes beyond engineering. Being a “Firm-Fixed Price” contract, Lockheed Martin is responsible for absorb any possible extra cost. That is, if something is complicated, the invoice does not rise. According to the company itself, that model has already proven effective in other scientific missions of deep space, where they even managed to return part of the NASA not used budget. The message is clear: if NASA wants to save its most ambitious mission without spending, Lockheed Martin is ready to lead it. Bringing back about thirty small tubes could help us answer one of humanity’s great questions. Was Mars ever inhabited? Scientists do not seek fossils or complex structures. They look for subtle indications that can only be analyzed with the level of precision allowed by land laboratories. And for that, the samples that Perseverance has collected are not any rock. They have been selected one by one depending on their location, their age, their composition and their geological context. Are, In Nasa’s own wordsthe most likely material to contain a Martian “biofirm.” But the value of these samples goes beyond the biological. They can reveal how the wet marte of 3.5 billion years ago was, how its climate evolved, why it became an arid and inhospitable planet, and how the geological, atmospheric and chemical processes interacted for millennia. They will also tell us what resources could take advantage of future manned missions: where it is safer to land, what materials are usable, what areas have risks. Images | Lockheed Martin In Xataka | NASA locked four volunteers one year simulating their life on Mars. What did not miss: an entire PS4 Games Library

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