The prototype vessel for the No Manning Required Ship (NOMARS) program, USX-1 Defiant, has been launched and is undergoing sea trials. The 180’, 240-metric-ton unmanned surface vessel (USV) was built at Nichols Brothers Boat Builders, Freeland, Wash., and completed construction February 2025. The vessel is designed to operate autonomously for extended periods without an onboard crew.
The vessel is currently scheduled for extensive dockside and open-ocean testing, with a multi-month demonstration planned for spring 2025, DARPA said. Earlier this week, the vessel was seen being pushed by a tug through the Saratoga Passage in Puget Sound, near Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, first reported by The War Zone.
The NOMARS program, developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), “aims to challenge the traditional naval architecture model, designing a seaframe (the ship without mission systems) from the ground up with no provision, allowance, or expectation for humans on board," DARPA said in a statement. "By removing the human element from all ship design considerations, the program intends to demonstrate significant advantages, to include: size, cost, at-sea reliability, greater hydrodynamic efficiency, survivability to sea-state, and survivability to adversary actions through stealth considerations and tampering resistance.”
In a separate milestone, DARPA recently executed a successful at-sea refueling test for its NOMARS program in January. The test, conducted by the U.S. Navy's unmanned maritime systems program office and USV Squadron 1, in collaboration with DARPA, involved two experimental USVs—Ranger and Mariner. Ranger carried a receiving station designed to simulate Defiant’s future refueling system, while Mariner, developed by Serco Inc., was equipped with a refueling mini-station.
The success of the refueling test is a step toward enabling NOMARS vessels to extend their operational range without human intervention, further supporting the program’s goal of developing long-endurance, autonomous ships capable of independent deployment.
