What The Navy’s Massive Orca Submarine Drone Is Actually Capable Of
Still, 2025 is shaping up to be a big year for the Orca, which is based, at least in part, on lessons learned from Boeing’s Echo Voyager demonstrator. While a so-called Orca “test asset system” drone was delivered to the Navy in late 2023, it’s getting its first real Orca this year. That will be followed by the Navy’s operational testing and evaluation of the platform in the coming months, which will allow the Navy to further test and refine the platform before eventually joining the fleet for real-world operations. The development comes as unmanned underwater vehicles of all sizes are increasingly viewed as potentially providing a revolution in undersea warfare among friends and foes alike, with China, in particular, pursuing the technology aggressively.