SubSea Craft unveils MARS unmanned surface vehicle

SubSea Craft unveiled its new MARS USV on 1 May, marking the company's second product offering following its Victa diver delivery platform. (Subsea Craft)

UK maritime technology company SubSea Craft has unveiled a new modular multi-purpose unmanned surface vehicle (USV) developed to meet the evolving requirements of the UK and its allies in distributed maritime operations.

A scale model of the new USV, dubbed ‘MARS', is being displayed in public for the first time at the Special Operations Forces (SOF) Week 2025, which is taking place in Tampa, Florida, from 5 to 9 May.

Taken from concept to on the water in only 100 days, MARS is a low-signature, high-speed, mission-configurable capability designed to maximise autonomy, survivability, and operational disruption in contested environments

Mission profiles include maritime domain awareness; persistent intelligence; surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR); counter-unmanned systems (C-UxS); and full-spectrum intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance (ISTAR) operations. The USV can be integrated with scalable command, control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C5ISR) networks and a variety of kinetic and non-kinetic modular payloads, as well as existing asymmetrical and conventional assets.

“The whole idea – because it is a small craft – is to be able to use the USV to force-project into contested waters, and its primary purpose is ISR,” Lee Ebsworth, SubSea Craft's chief commercial officer, told Janes . “It's all about being able to move into GPS-denied, high-threat environments and build up a situational picture to send back to the operating units. And then, with its additional payloads that can be reconfigured just before the mission, you get to select without risk to life, bringing these capabilities to bear.”