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Deployment

Saildrone USV (Explorer / Voyager / Surveyor) at Kodiak

Saildrone (founded 2012 in Alameda, California by Richard Jenkins, with retired three-star admiral John Mustin as president) is the canonical commercial autonomous surface vessel company, operating wind- and solar-powered uncrewed surface vehicles for ocean data collection, mapping, and maritime domain awareness. Its line spans the 7-meter Explorer, the 10-meter Voyager, and the 20-meter Surveyor, with a new 52-meter diesel-electric hybrid Spectre announced in 2026 for delivery in 2027 that departs from the wind-and-solar identity. It runs a captive mission-operation model, owning and operating the fleet and selling data and outcomes rather than vessels, with customers including NOAA, the US Navy's 4th Fleet for counter-narcotics and illegal-fishing work, and Denmark's EIFO, and funding including a $100 million Series C, a $60 million EIFO round in May 2025, and a $50 million Lockheed Martin strategic investment in October 2025. The registry records it at commercial maturity, the most mature commercial surface-autonomy player, on twelve-plus years of operation, 130-plus vehicles, and recurring contracts. A significant cap-flag applies to its cumulative-scale figures, which are inconsistent across its own channels: an October 2023 primary milestone of 1,042,620 nautical miles, 32,438 days at sea, and 136 vehicles is the defensible verified anchor, while its homepage now claims more than 2 million nautical miles and a separate 2026 figure cites 2.5 million miles, both with the day-count frozen at 60,000, so the 2-to-2.5-million-mile claims are treated as not verified. The strongest discrete verified scale is its Navy 4th Fleet operation of about 130,000 nautical miles over roughly 2,700 mission-days. Its autonomy is genuine, though the degree of human supervision during missions is undisclosed.

Saildrone USV (Explorer / Voyager / Surveyor) by Saildrone · Operated by Saildrone · Catalog entry · 3 sources · not yet field-verified · Maritime

Track Saildrone USV (Explorer / Voyager / Surveyor) at Kodiak

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Machine-readable surfaces

Footage

PRIMARY SOURCE
Courtesy of Saildrone

Saildrone footage from its 2023 hurricane-season mission with NOAA, collecting tropical-cyclone data in the Atlantic. Autonomy is sail-powered navigation and endurance; the mission is NOAA-tasked, not autonomously planned.

PRIMARY SOURCE
Courtesy of Saildrone

Saildrone footage from its 2024 hurricane mission with NOAA, with an Explorer-class vehicle collecting data inside Atlantic hurricanes. The data-collection autonomy is navigation and endurance; the mission is NOAA-tasked and human-directed, not self-planned.

PRIMARY SOURCE
Courtesy of Saildrone

Saildrone's overview of its Surveyor-class uncrewed surface vehicle, built for long-range autonomous ISR and deep-ocean mapping with sensor-fusion payloads. Autonomy is navigation and endurance; mission tasking is supervised.

PRIMARY SOURCE
Courtesy of Saildrone

Saildrone footage of its wind- and solar-powered autonomous surface vehicles in a maritime-domain-awareness context. Navigation and endurance are autonomous; missions are tasking-supervised.

Saildrone autonomous surface vehicles deployed in partnership with NOAA and NASA for Arctic climate science, sea ice surveys, and fisheries assessments in Alaskan waters. The fifth annual Arctic mission launched May 16, 2019 from Dutch Harbor, Alaska -- the largest Saildrone fleet ever deployed at the time, with six USVs operating in the Bering and Chukchi Seas over a 150-day period. Missions have included CO2 flux measurements, ocean acidification monitoring, fish stock surveys (Eastern Bering Sea pollock), and northern fur seal habitat assessment. NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) and Alaska Fisheries Science Center (AFSC) are primary science partners.

Key facts

Fleet size (2019 mission)
6 Saildrone USVs
Operating area
Bering Sea and Chukchi Sea
Mission duration
~150 days (May-October 2019)
Partners
NOAA PMEL, NOAA AFSC, NASA

Safety record

No incidents on record for Saildrone USV (Explorer / Voyager / Surveyor) at Kodiak.

Only active incidents are counted. Retracted incidents are excluded from this summary but remain reachable at their canonical URLs.

Trust tier
Catalog entry · 3 sources · not yet field-verifiedhow tiers work →
Last updated
2026-07-10
Model
Saildrone USV (Explorer / Voyager / Surveyor)
Company
Saildrone
Location
United States/Kodiak
Operator
Saildrone
Status
operational
Operator type
customer deployed
First seen
2019-05-16
ID
78239904-fde4-4649-a032-c25e50d4f272

Timeline

  1. May 2019
    First recorded
    Saildrone USV (Explorer / Voyager / Surveyor) first documented operating at Kodiak.
  2. Jun 2026
    created
  3. Jul 2026
    Current status: operational, reviewed
    Latest recorded state. New status transitions append here as the deployment-status recorder produces them.

On the deployment map

Saildrone USV (Explorer / Voyager / Surveyor) operates in Kodiak. Explore the full verified map:

Sources (3)

  1. https://www.saildrone.com/
  2. Largest USV Fleet Ever Launches 5th Annual Arctic Mission · https://www.saildrone.com/news/2019-arctic-climate-sea-ice-fisheries · 2019-05-16
  3. Fifth Annual Saildrone Mission Launched In Pursuit of the Ice Edge · https://pmel.noaa.gov/news-story/fifth-annual-saildrone-mission-launched-pursuit-ice-edge · 2019-05-16
Methodology: Verified · 3 sources (no primary) · last reviewed 2026-07-10

Verification posture

Verified

Low confidence

Review state

Stable

Last reviewed 2026-07-10

Maturity + lifecycle

Maturity stage: commercial

Lifecycle: active

Architectural position

Cohort: maritime_surface

Sources by quality tier

3
unclassified
Unclassified source

The framework is documented at /methodology. Corrections at /corrections. Reviewer: DEPLOY editorial team.

Methodology surface for Saildrone USV (Explorer / Voyager / Surveyor) at Kodiak.

Common questions

What is the Saildrone USV (Explorer / Voyager / Surveyor) deployment at Kodiak?
Saildrone USV (Explorer / Voyager / Surveyor), built by Saildrone, is recorded as a deployment at Kodiak on the DEPLOY registry. Saildrone operates the deployment directly.
Who operates Saildrone USV (Explorer / Voyager / Surveyor) at Kodiak?
Saildrone, the manufacturer of Saildrone USV (Explorer / Voyager / Surveyor), operates this deployment directly. This is a maker-deploys-its-own-product arrangement rather than a customer pilot.
When did the Saildrone USV (Explorer / Voyager / Surveyor) deployment at Kodiak go live?
The deployment is recorded as starting May 16, 2019 on the DEPLOY registry. Earlier activity may exist but is not yet sourced.
Have there been incidents at the Saildrone USV (Explorer / Voyager / Surveyor) deployment at Kodiak?
No active incidents affecting this deployment are recorded on the DEPLOY registry. Absence of recorded incidents is not a guarantee no incident occurred; DEPLOY records only sourced incidents and suppresses retracted ones.

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