Raytheon and Composite Energy Technologies have successfully demonstrated the undersea launch capabilities of HADALUS, a new long-endurance unmanned undersea vehicle, the companies announced Monday.
The vehicle completed a series of at-sea missions on a Navy undersea test range during a recent exercise, launching while submerged. According to Raytheon, it marks the first time the Navy has seen the integrated capability in the water, and points toward a single unmanned platform performing detect, reacquire and engage functions in one mission.
HADALUS measures 34 feet with a six-foot cross section and more than 2,000 nautical miles of endurance. Its free-flooded, all-carbon-fiber exoskeleton is designed to deliver strength and payload capacity at a lower-cost architecture — roughly one-third to one-fifth the cost of comparable long-endurance vehicles, according to the companies.
The two firms went from concept sketch to a working prototype in under 18 months, funding the design, build, launcher integration, sonar and electronics and system testing themselves.
“This demonstration is an important step in a broader roadmap to deliver autonomous, end-to-end undersea capabilities that are far less detectable than surface platforms,” said Jen Gauthier, vice president of naval systems and sustainment at Raytheon.
CET CEO and President Chase Hogoboom said the project shows the undersea industrial base can move faster than traditional development cycles allow, pairing his company’s composite vehicle architecture with Raytheon’s mission systems and sensors.
Raytheon is a business of RTX, which reported more than $88 billion in 2025 sales and employs more than 180,000 people worldwide.
