$2.1B for medium sea drones: Navy opens five-year MUSV call to stock its drones.mil marketplace

The money

Where does the MUSV money come from?

Section 20002 of Public Law 119-21 appropriated $2,100,000,000 “for development, procurement, and integration of purpose-built medium unmanned surface vessels” ^[4]. The same section carries $1.534 billion for small unmanned surface vessel production and $188.36 million for developing and testing maritime robotic autonomous systems ^[4]. Rebecca Gassler, the Navy’s first portfolio acquisition executive for robotic and autonomous systems, said in March that MUSV funding would come from the reconciliation law, though she declined to give quantities or a budget total ^[3].

Base-budget money is smaller and still pending. The FY2027 request includes $121.130 million in Other Procurement, Navy for a line titled Medium Unmanned Surface Vehicle (MUSVS), and both the House-passed H.R. 8800 and the Senate committee’s S. 4784 authorize that amount unchanged ^[6, 7]. The FY2026 NDAA funding table has no such procurement line ^[5].

Research money moves more. The Unmanned Surface Vehicle Enabling Capabilities program element (0605513N) was authorized at $3.712 million for FY2026 ^[5]. The FY2027 request is $255.135 million. The House authorizes the request; the Senate committee authorizes $632.135 million, adding $325 million for “Containerized payloads for MUSV” and $52 million to increase USV enabling capabilities ^[6, 7].

How does a vendor get paid?

The marketplace model pays for proven boats. In the first MUSV round, launched in March, Navy guidance offered a vendor $10,000 for attending a post-award conference and $15,000,000 after completing all of the Navy’s on-water tests, according to DefenseScoop ^[3]. For Phase II, the notice says the Navy will use the commercial solutions authority in 10 U.S.C. 3458 and other transaction authority in 10 U.S.C. 4022, and “intends to award Basic Ordering Agreements and prototype other transaction agreements, and potentially production contracts or transactions to successful vendors” ^[1].

Existing law limits the cash flow. Section 122 of the FY2026 NDAA bars a detail design or construction award, or any procurement-account obligation, for a medium or large USV program unless the agreement requires a demonstration of at least 720 continuous hours without maintenance or repair on the main propulsion and the electrical generation and distribution systems ^[5]. Until the Navy certifies that demonstration, contract financing payments are capped at 90 percent for small businesses and 80 percent for all others ^[5].

The programs

What must a Phase II MUSV do?

The call was issued under the Drone Marketplace Commercial Solutions Opening, W58RGZ26SC001, as call W58RGZ-26-S-C001-0008 ^[1]. An update dated Sept. 23 says it replaces a planned Area of Interest document and that “a separate AOI will not be posted” ^[1]. Vendors will be evaluated on “platform maturity, open-architecture autonomy compatibility, endurance, payload integration capacity, and rapid-production scalability” ^[1]. The requirements, as DefenseScoop quoted them from the call ^[2]:

• autonomous operation in open ocean, with unmanned missions of at least 10 days
• capacity for “at least 2x Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit (TEU) weighing 24,000 kg each and consuming 25 kW each (all payloads will be containerized)”
• displacement no greater than 5,000 metric tonnes and length no more than 90 meters
• evaluation in three steps: a capability assessment of the submission, a demonstration sailing from a continental U.S. port, and marketplace qualification and agreement

“An MUSV requiring substantial modifications for the production platform compared to the as-demonstrated platform will not be considered,” the call states, according to DefenseScoop ^[2].

Approved vessels go onto drones.mil, which the notice calls a “digital clearinghouse” that lets acquisition authorities and operational stakeholders “rapidly configure and issue funded delivery orders for vetted maritime autonomous systems without redundant procurement cycles” ^[1]. The notice says the open window lets new entrants compete and lets existing vendors submit updated product blocks and payload configurations ^[1].

How is this different from MASC?

The marketplace replaced the Modular Attack Surface Craft (MASC) program, which the Navy formed in 2025 by merging its earlier large and medium USV efforts ^[3, 9]. The July 2025 MASC solicitation asked for a baseline vessel carrying at least two 40-foot containerized payloads of 36.3 metric tons each, drawing up to 75 kilowatts apiece, with a range of 2,500 nautical miles at 25 knots or more in Sea State 4, according to the solicitation text reproduced by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) ^[9]. The Phase II call specifies smaller 20-foot containers at 25 kilowatts each ^[2].

Gassler told reporters in March that the Navy “realized” industry had made investments “that we were not capitalizing on in MASC — and now we can in this marketplace” ^[3]. She said her team contacted every company that competed for MASC before announcing the change ^[3].

The office has since been restructured. In August the Navy created a direct reporting portfolio manager for robotic and autonomous systems (DRPM RAS), with Christopher Miller in the job in an acting capacity and dual-hatted as acting portfolio acquisition executive ^[11]. That office issued the Phase II notice ^[1].

The politics

Navy leaders frame the marketplace as a speed and capacity play. “We will reward the companies who are able to deliver capability at the speed of relevance,” Navy Secretary John Phelan said in March ^[3]. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle has said medium USVs could be used for “scouting, screening, and striking” ^[2]. On Sept. 24 he stood up a Robotic and Autonomous Systems Warfighting Development Center at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek, Virginia, writing that “Systems that work will move forward. Systems that do not will be improved, redirected, or stopped” ^[12].

The Navy is also weighing who owns the boats. Nick Bergeron, deputy portfolio acquisition executive, said in April that the service might “procure and possibly, in many cases in the future, lease these vessels” ^[10].

Congress has written conditions in both directions. The House bill, whose passage was covered in an earlier brief, would bar the Navy from accepting delivery of any unmanned surface vessel until it certifies that the CNO or the Marine Corps commandant has developed concepts of operation and of employment for at least one combat function ^[6]. Section 1021 would also require an integration strategy within 180 days that covers government and contractor ownership models and their effect on “competition and industrial base concerns” ^[6]. Section 836 would have the Navy prioritize MUSV offerors that certify domestic supply chains and U.S. manufacturing, unless it certifies no such offeror is available ^[6]. Section 222 would require autonomy that works when communications or positioning, navigation and timing are degraded ^[6].

The Senate committee’s bill has no matching delivery limit. It funds the payload side instead, and Section 917 would let the President establish a unified U.S. Robotic and Autonomous Systems Command ^[7].

Next milestone

The first-round deadline comes first: Navy guidance called for selected vendors to finish an on-water MUSV test event no later than Sept. 30 ^[3]. Gassler said in March the expectation was delivery of at least the first production vessel in fiscal 2027 ^[3].

Phase II assessments begin Nov. 16 ^[1]. Base-budget money for the new procurement line waits on appropriations: the stopgap, H.R. 6500, runs to Dec. 11 and bars CR funds for any line item “for which appropriations, funds, or other authority were not available during fiscal year 2026” ^[8]. Section 102 governs stopgap funds; the reconciliation money was appropriated separately and stays available until Sept. 30, 2029 ^[4, 8]. The Navy has not said how many medium USVs it wants or what it expects to pay for each ^[3].