Saildrone wins court protest after the Navy improperly cut it from its $2.1B drone boat competition

A judge at the US Court of Federal Claims ruled that the Navy improperly excluded Saildrone from its Medium Unmanned Surface Vessel (MUSV) competition, a $2.1 billion program for uncrewed vessels. Judge Philip Hadji found the Navy treated Saildrone's proposal differently from rivals and ordered it to reevaluate the bid. Until it does, the Navy can't commit more than $1.5 billion of the program to production.

Saildrone, based in Alameda, California, had been cut before the at-sea testing phase. A second drone boat maker, Blue Water Autonomy, challenged its own elimination in the same case.

Why it matters

In an Oct. 29 ruling in the same case, the judge also held that the court can review prototype contests run under fast-track Other Transaction (OT) agreements, which Saildrone's law firm called a landmark. That could open more defense drone deals to legal challenges.

Sources

• Saildrone press release
• Defense Daily
• Bloomberg Law
• Selendy Gay (Saildrone's counsel)

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Summarized by Servospace from the sources above, drafted with AI help and checked against those sources before publishing. Claims are the companies' or outlets' unless we say otherwise. How we work.