Why DARPA's MANTA RAY submersible is nightmare for enemy subs

[Music] north of Grumman is certainly no stranger to stealing headlines with legendary platforms under its belt like the world's first stealth bomber the B2 spirit and Rapid progress continuing on America's new stealth bomber the B21 Raider but in recent weeks a very different Northrup Grumman platform has been dominating discussions online this very sleek and futuristic looking submarine seems to reflect an Unholy marriage between the billions of dollars North or Grumman has invested into their stealthy flying wi aircraft designs and the billions of years worth of evolution reflected in some of the ocean's most graceful deep ocean Predators resulting in a new deep sea submersible designed to operate for extended durations in deep ocean environments laying dormant on the seaf floor waiting for a threat to approach but while Nature's manay May feed on small fish shrimp and planktonic organisms Northrop grumman's manay has its eye on much bigger prey namely the nuclear ballistic missile submarines of adversary Nations capable of encroaching deep into American territory potentially undetected and laying waste to vast swaths of the American mainland in a new nuclear conflict let's talk about northr Grumman and darpa's Manta Race submersible and why it could become the last line of defense in an allout nuclear war I'm Alex hulings and this is C [Music] [Applause] [Music] power Brown news helps you stay on top of what's going on in the world while also seeing right through the political bi so commonly found in today's media coverage ground news does this by compiling articles published by Outlets all over the globe and putting them in one place making it easier than ever to not only stay on top of the news Trends but also to see differences in how stories are covered depending on an Outlet's political bias you can even choose specific topics you want ground news to help you stay on top of like the military veterans or even the F35 last weekend for instance a royal Australia Navy helicopter operating over international waters above the Yellow Sea was forced to take evasive action after an intercepting Chinese J10 fighter not only crossed directly in front of the helicopter as it flew but deployed flares at the same time forcing the helicopter to change course for safety reasons Royal Australian Navy officials have described this interaction as unsafe and unprofessional and it's certainly not unique according to the Department of Defense there were at least 180 similar unprofessional interactions between Chinese military aircraft and American Personnel between 2021 and 2023 alone and ground news makes it very easy to see that some 20 Outlets have covered the story so far with fairly even distribution across the political Spectrum including seven left leaning five right leaning and seven Center leaning Outlets covering the story and if you scroll down the page just a bit you can also get a sense of how factual reporting on the story has been with 67% of the outlets covering the story thus far being rated for high factuality and ground news will do a whole lot more than that including letting you know who actually owns a news Outlet covering a story and letting you know which countries are covering a story and which ones are giving it the silent treatment ground news is a very handy tool not just for my research but for my day-to-day news consumption and it can be for you too just go to ground. news/ sandbox to get 40% off the same Vantage plan that I use in my research again that's ground. news/ sandbox or just follow the link in the description below to get 40% off the same Vantage plan that I use to stay in the loop on February 3rd 2024 just shy of two years after Russian forces invaded Ukraine the Russian Navy rolled out its fifth modernized Bor a class nuclear ballistic missile submarine from its shipyards in Northern Russia this new class of undersea Predator is alleged to be significantly stealthier than previous Russian submarines thanks to its use of pump jet propulsion a first for the nation and as a result of this development Russian State media has claimed that this new submarine is five times quieter than Russia's latest nuclear powerered akula class submarines and at least two times quieter than America's own Virginia class attack Subs that would be tasked with hunting this vessel down with at least two more borai a class vessels already in production it's clear that despite Russia's military wo in Ukraine the country remains heavily invested in maintaining and extending its potent Nuclear Strike capabilities on which Russian President Vladimir Putin seems increasingly Reliant to Stave off direct Western interference with his military objectives but Russia's undersea Fleet May soon be facing a new kind of threat one that lurks deeper than any of their Marines can sail hibernating with nearly no detectable electromagnetic emissions capable of rapidly coming to life and soaring through the sea like an exotic Predator with the payload Bay of a stealth bomber taking on submersible threats with a wide variety of potential tools before once again anchoring itself to the seabed to lay in wait once more on April 8th northr Grumman officially unveiled its new prototype deep sea drone the manay uncrewed underwater vehicle or uuv this new undersea drone is designed to conduct extended duration autonomous operations at long ranges with minimal need for human support at least according to north of Grumman making it uniquely suited for a wide variety of deep sea scientific and very likely combat oriented operations Northrup Grumman describes the new manta ray drone as quote a new class of uuv it is an extra-large glider that will operate long duration long range and payload capable under C missions without the need for Onsite human Logistics now details about meay and its full range of intended capabilities are still fairly sparse but we can glean some information about the goals ining this endeavor through the Contracting documents and announcements released by the defense adance resarch projects agency or DARPA leading up to this point this effort really kicked off in Earnest back in March of 2020 when DARPA awarded developmental contracts to North orp Grumman locked Martin and navitech to mature concepts for what DARPA manay program manager Dr Kyle Warner described as quote an autonomous underwater vehicle that's out operating on its own harvesting energy and completing whatever Mission it's given by December 21 the field narrowed to northr Grumman and navitech now known as Pacar Technologies with Phase 2 contracts awarded to each for the construction of fullscale technology demonstrators in September 2023 Pacar technology manay subscale prototype began Splash testing meant to verify the sensor suite and key autonomy behaviors for the forthcoming fullscale platform and according to a DARPA press release dated May 1st of 2024 Northrup grumman's fullscale manay prototype completed its inwater testing off the coast of Southern California in February and March of 2024 now these tests were meant to demonstrate quote at C hydrodynamic performance including submerged operations using all the vehicles modes of propulsion and steering buoyancy propellers and control surfaces I'll quote Dr Kyle Warner darpa's manay program manager once again our successful fullscale manay testing validates the vehicle's Readiness to advance toward real world operations after being rapidly assembled in the field from modular subsections the combination of cross-country modular Transportation INF field assembly and subsequent deployment demonstrates a firstof kind capability for an extra llarge uuv and when he said extra-large he meant it while images and renders of north or grumman's manta ray had been released before the pictures that came with that May 1st press release were the first to give us a real sense of manta Ray's scale as compared to scientists Standing On Top of the platform and Chase boats following behind it now based on the manta ray program description which was also penned by Dr Warner the driving factor in this effort was to field a deep sea drone that could specifically operate for extended durations without the need for human logistical support while not exactly overtly spelled out in the program's description it does seem evident based on other statements from people involved in the effort that man Ray's priorities are not just extended deep sea operations with minimal logistic requirements but specifically the force multiplying effect of passing off these roles to a drone that doesn't need much in the way of human interaction I'm going to quote Dr Warner again if successful this new class of uuv will give the combatant commander an amplification of capacity without disrupting current operations by remaining independent of man vessels and ports once deployed now in order to minimize those logistical requirements darpa's documentation calls for novel energy management and even energy harvesting techniques for use in deep sea environments in other words creative new ways to minimize the energy draw and even to supplement the energy stores of this platform using its environment as well as a wide variety of new onboard systems that are designed to minimize power requirements from propulsion to threat detection and Beyond a fourth company Metron Incorporated has also been contracted to help mature Technologies in that specific vein another evident element of the Manta program is to operate at extreme depths that would otherwise be impossible or economically infeasible for the Navy or even civilian submersibles now that point was emphasized in an episode of the voices from DARPA podcast released in October of 2022 when Dr Warner explained that a main driver for this effort was the ability to go to depths that humans and many human systems are not able to go Warner went on to explain that dartwood chose the name manay as it emphasized the program's aim of Fielding a disruptive submersible technology that parts from the Sleek torpedo like design that's so common in military submarines and instead leans into the efficient shapes of undersea life now Warner clarified that DARPA was happy to accept designs that didn't resemble the manay found in nature but northr Grumman seemed to take this idea to heart when designing their own submersible leveraging a Sleek manay like design that also Bears a bit of a resemblance to the stealth bombers that northr Grumman has made famous and to understand the value that a platform like mantay could provide it's first important for us to recognize the limitations inherent to current state deep sea submersible technology most of today's uncrewed underwater vehicles are tethered directly to surface vessels for both power and support and the few that aren't still need to keep support usually in the form of a crude ship on the surface nearby because the systems can usually only operate for periods of hours or in a few extreme cases days I'll quote Dr Warner again so you can either chase them around with a host vessel which is expensive and takes a lot of time and requires humans above them and you have to offer them care and feeding and everything else that comes with that or you can find a way to extend endurance Under the Sea so part of this project from a military utility perspective is reducing the burden if you will on these human operated ships now to Dr Warner's point the single most limiting factor for uuvs today is power storage a big submersible requires a ton of power for propulsion alone before you even consider onboard Control Systems sensor Suites and any potential payloads so a significant area of focus for this manta ray effort Beyond designing systems with low power requirements is finding ways to draw power from the submersible operating environments and to do so darp has been Consulting with people like Kelly rule a research and development mechanical engineer with Sandia National Laboratories who specializes in wave energy conversion or deriving electrical energy from the power of ocean and river currents the rule who serving as an adviser for the overall effort says there are several other potential avenues for power production Under the Sea Beyond capturing the power of currents things like solinity gradient power which can be derived in a variety of ways like reversed electrodialysis or red for short now explaining exactly how red can create electrical energy for a submarine is if you'll forgive the pun way outside my depth but for my limited understanding the process seems to use a stack of alternating cathode and anode exchanging perm selective membranes with the compartments between membranes filled alternately with freshwater and Salty Sea waterer the difference in salinity between the water generates a voltage over the membranes that can be captured and converted into stored electrical power or another potential solution that North or Grumman has already been exploring in partnership with Renewable Energy company seatrek is the mission unlimited unmanned underwater vehicle station which requires the deployment of separate thermal energy pods as they call them that create electrical energy by harnessing the power of the ocean's thermal gradient or the mixing of War warm and cooler currents in effect uuvs like manay could use the thermal energy pod sort of like an undersea gas station returning to fill up anytime their onboard energy stores are running low now each of these methods of power production could theoretically be used on their own or in conjunction with one another with the Manta submersible deriving its own electrical energy from let's say ocean currents but also with a thermal energy pod nearby that it and other uuvs could use to rapidly replenish its batteries when necessary as well as aiding in Communications and that is a very big deal because one of the biggest challenges facing any deep sea platform whether crude or uncrewed is Communications military platforms that operate on or above the surface of the ocean obviously rely heavily on radio communications but these standard radio Transmissions can't penetrate the ocean's highly conductive salt water as a result American nuclear ballistic missile submarines rely on very low frequency or VF Transmissions broadcast by Massive sprawling antenna complexes positioned in five installations around the world and if those stations are taken out by an enemy attack the US uses a fleet of specially equipped Tac short for take charge and move out aircraft that can deploy 5 Mile Long antennas before flying and tight overlapping circles above the ocean to transmit what effectively amounts to a text message to submarines hidden deep beneath the waves now the manta ray could certainly be equipped for VF Communications as well but the insulated connector between the manay submersible and Northrup grumman's envisioned thermal energy pod could also accommodate the rapid transfer of data that uploaded data could then be transferred once again into a smaller device that Northrup calls a data bubble now these data bubbles are then deployed from the energy pod where they float up to the surface and then use their internal RF satellite Communications antenna to transmit that data back to shore via satellite or nearby surface vessel allowing for a pretty simple and straightforward means for standard Communications at regular intervals now of course all of this also means that an uncrewed submarine meant for extended duration operations needs to be able to operate almost entirely a autonomously with very little direct interaction with the world above as such manay needs to adopt or adapt some means of autonomous control potentially through the use of advanced AI models and of course power production Communications and autonomy aren't the only challenges that mantay needs to overcome novel solutions for things like corrosion control undersee obstacle avoidance and the extreme degree of reliability required for extended operations in such unforgiving environments are also focal points for this effort but if manay can overcome these challenges it can have a significant strategic impact on coastal defense and make no mistake that is definitely something the US Navy is on the market for right now the United States is facing a growing Legion of submersible threats in really every operating theater on the planet including both Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the US Mainland despite Russia's poor performance throughout its ongoing invasion of Ukraine for instance Russia's undersea capabilities remain among the best in the world and as such represent a truly potent threat to American Security and interests currently Russia operates two classes of nuclear armed ballistic missile submarines including five Delta 4 subs and eight Bor class vessels of different iterations and despite Russia's sanction based economic woses production on three more of these Bor a class vessels continues as I speak and then of course there's Russia's status 6 Oceanic multi-purpose system also known as the Poseidon or Canyon doomsday torpedo this high-speed nuclear torpedo is designed to travel distances as great as a reported 5400 nautical miles now that's about 6,200 mil for those of us who aren't Pirates and all while traveling at speeds as high as a claimed 54 4 knots that is a shocking 62 mph Under the Sea all before lying in weight inside enemy Harbors waiting for the command to detonate its nuclear payload now initial Russian claims suggested that the status 6 would carry a massive 50 Megaton or even 100 Megaton nuclear payload but that has since been revised to a much more realistic 2 megatons or so nonetheless a 2 Megaton blast would still be roughly 100 times larger than the atomic bomb dropped on hirosima and while initial claims that such a detonation could produce an irradiated Title Wave that would wipe out civilization for dozens of Miles Inland more recent analysis has largely disregarded this possibility but nonetheless a detonation inside an American Harbor would be catastrophic and if this threat sounds hypothetical to you you should know that it isn't in 2017 for instance a Russian military documentary series alleged that a fleet of Russian Shuka b-class attack submarines armed with long-range cruise missiles were dispatched with orders to take up positions just outside American east coast ports with US Navy installations the Russian Navy claimed to have completed this Mission successfully saying that they managed to operate just outside American territorial Waters some 12 nautical miles at sea without being detected now the United States did not publicly resp respond to these claims and for good reason had the Pentagon dismissed the Russian claims as false Russian information operations would have spun that as tacit confirmation that America could not detect their presence and if the US Navy did indeed detect and track the presence of these Russian Subs revealing that could inadvertently provide some indication as to just what sorts of detection capabilities the US Navy does have which may prompt renewed investment from the Russian Navy finding ways to circumvent it but regardless of the claims truth the US Navy very clearly took that threat seriously shortly after Russian officials made this claim Secretary of the Navy at the time Richard V Spencer announced the US was reestablishing its North Atlantic based second Fleet specifically to counter emerging Russian threats this decision echoed sentiments published two years earlier by then Naval forces Europe Commander Admiral James fago II I'll quote him now Russian submarines are prowling the Atlantic testing our defenses confronting our Command of the Seas and preparing the complex underwater battle space to give them an edge in any future conflict not only have Russia's actions and capabilities increased in alarming and confrontational ways its national security policy is aimed at challenging the United States and its NATO allies and partners now since then several means of countering this submersive ible threat have emerged as adaptations of existing programs entirely new programs of record or new Developmental and experimental efforts all aimed at anti-submarine Warfare just a handful of which include darpa's anti-submarine Warfare continuous Trail unmanned vessel often known simply as actu which is an unmanned surface vessel designed specifically to counter submersible threats the act of program launched in early 2010 but in January AR Ary of 2018 was transferred from DARPA to the Office of Naval Research for further development toward operational service and if you thought drone ships hunting submarines sounds like science fiction one month later DARPA kicked off its persistent aquatic living sensors or Pal's program this effort I kid you not aims to study natural and modified organisms to determine which ones could best support sensor systems that detect the movement of manned and unmanned underwater vehicles but simply this effort's all about developing the hardware software and algorithms required to translate organism Behavior into quote actionable information it can then communicate to other platforms to engage those threats in other words because sea life is naturally self-replicating and adaptable to its environment and often capable of sensing the electromagnetic field produced by an encroaching submarine well before it actually arrives by studying the behavior of this marine life the us could have a very effective early warning system for submarines entering its territory but even if this effort and many others work exactly as advertised the US Navy is still facing one very big Challenge and that is that the ocean is massive the Atlantic Ocean alone represents some 41 million square miles and with American territorial Waters extending 12 nautical miles out to sea that means that on the East Coast alone Uncle Sam has more than 543,000 Square mil to keep tabs on and if you include the west coast and other American territories now we're talking 4133 million square miles of territorial waters for Russian and Chinese Subs to be hiding within so if you were to say assign one warship to every 500 square miles to maintain a Vigilant posture that means you would need some 8,267 ships to do the job of coastal defense alone now the US Navy operates maybe 280 ships at any given time many of which are forward deployed to other theaters making Coastal Maritime defense not just a massive undertaking but one that's all but impossible to do through traditional means alone and this is where northr grumman's new manta ray system could be an incredibly potent new addition to America's growing anti-submarine Arsenal providing a sustained weaponized presence that's all but impossible to detect while inactive and hibernating deep beneath the prowling depths of Russian and Chinese submarines and once such a submarine is detected via any one of the various sensing methods automated responses in the form of both surface and subsurface platforms like manay could take immediate action identifying the submarine tracking it for other platforms or even potentially engaging it all on its own making it harder than ever to sneak a submarine or nuclear torpedo for that matter into any American or Allied Harbor of course when facing a challenge of this magnitude no single platform not even one as advanced and forward leaning as manay can solve this problem on their own but Northrup grumman's manay or Pacar Technology's manay for that matter could ultimately prove to be a vital piece of the anti-submarine puzzle and as exciting and dynamic as Northrup grumman's mantay prototype genuinely is maybe the most important statement to come out of DARPA regarding this effort is that they are not putting all their eggs in any one basket the sheer scope of the challenge and the existential nature of the threat these submarines May pose demands innovation in a wide variety of technological sectors and I'll close on one more quote from darpa's Kyle Warner manay performers have each taken unique approaches to solving the wide range of challenges related to uuv be endurance to me this is a clear sign that we are tackling a complex problem without a clear one-size fits-all solution and if you ask me that's exactly what I'd want to hear from someone in his position and with that ends yet another addition of C power from sandbox news I'm Alex hulings make sure to swing by sandbox news.com today and every day for all the latest in news entertainment and motivation from all around the force if you got anything out of today's video make sure to click like And subscribe down below and leave me a comment so I know what I should cover next and of course don't forget to tap on that Bell icon so you never miss a drop from sandbox news [Music] [Music]

Channel: Sandboxx

Views: 585,807

Keywords: northrop, northrop grumman, manta ray, mantaray, manta ray submersible, submersible, submarine, anti-submarine warfare, asw, darpa, defense, us navy, actuv, drone ship, drone submersible, uuv, unmanned underwater vehicle, autonomous underwater vehicle, auv, ssbn, ballistic missile submarine, sub, navy

Id: x7OTgpxedp0

Length: 27min 48sec (1668 seconds)

Published: Thu May 09 2024