At this year’s Sea Air Space Expo, Ghostworks Marine and Ultra Maritime announced a modular anti-submarine warfare (ASW) platform aimed at providing allied navies with scalable and rapidly deployable undersea surveillance and threat response capabilities.
Michigan-based Ghostworks Marine unveiled the Medusa (M90T), a 90’ vessel built on the company’s proprietary M-Hull design. The vessel is equipped to carry a 20’ containerized ASW Mission Pod developed by Ultra Maritime, along with towed array sonar systems. The Medusa is also designed to operate with uncrewed surface vessels (USVs) that deploy additional sensors and underwater surveillance tools, the companies said in a press release.
The M90T platform integrates Ultra Maritime’s automated, remote-operated Mission Pod system. The Mission Pod is engineered for deployment on small, minimally crewed or uncrewed vessels and contains a complete processing system. According to Ghostworks, the Medusa platform is built for high-speed operations while maintaining payload capacity, allowing for the rapid deployment of ASW missions.
The M90T can also carry and deploy Ghostworks-manufactured USVs that extend the operational range of the system. These USVs are configured to deploy Ultra Maritime's independently developed sonobuoys, which are to enhance acoustic performance. The USVs are also equipped with Ultra Maritime’s receivers and processing systems.
Mark Kenny, senior vice president of business development at Ultra Maritime, said, “The Ultra Maritime Mission Pod is designed for quick deployment on and off surface vessels. Ghostworks' Medusa (M90T) offers ready integration and can carry the Mission Pod alongside a family of vessels and drones, adding layers of detection and data collection capabilities. This enables us to provide our customers with a complete turnkey solution at a fraction of the cost of larger capital ASW ships.”
Patrick Coughlin, executive vice president of business development for Ghostworks, added: “Our goal is to develop a rapidly deployable, turnkey, ASW capability that allows users to implement a comprehensive ASW strategy efficiently. The primary operational unit will be the Ghostworks Marine Medusa open stern variant (M90T), equipped with Ultra Maritime's containerized ASW package. These vessels will integrate data from Ultra Maritime's towed array, sonobuoy, and other ISR/ASW sources within their fire control systems to track and potentially engage submerged targets."
The companies aim to offer a flexible, scalable ASW solution that combines manned and unmanned surface platforms for extended surveillance and threat tracking.
