AINEWS
The two companies allege the Navy's evaluation was "overly restrictive" and reached "irrational conclusions" inconsistent with the request. The Navy declined to comment.
Saildrone and Blue Water Autonomy asked the U.S. Court of Federal Claims on Tuesday to set aside the Navy's evaluation of their bids for the Medium Unmanned Surface Vessel (MUSV) Family of Systems program, a drone-boat marketplace that names seven winners and pays each up to $15 million for an at-sea design demonstration.
The two excluded companies [allege in their complaints that the Navy applied "overly restrictive evaluation criteria, a misreading of Blue Water's proposal, and irrational conclusions that are inconsistent with the [Request for Prototype Proposals] and statutory requirements"](https://www.navytimes.com/industry/techwatch/2026/07/16/2-defense-tech-companies-sue-us-navy-after-losing-out-on-musv-program/). The Court of Federal Claims is the post-award protest venue for federal procurement; an order there can stop work on a contract while the case moves.
The Navy declined to comment on pending litigation. Substantive portions of both complaints are sealed, so the specific deficiencies the Navy cited in each proposal are not on the public record. Saildrone's complaint is not quoted in NavyTimes' account, and the only quoted language from Blue Water's is the "overly restrictive evaluation criteria" passage.
MUSV is the Navy's replacement for the Modular Attack Surface Craft (MASC) program the service announced on July 28, 2025 and canceled months later. The new solicitation opened March 26, 2026 and closed April 17. By May, the Navy had named seven winners: Sea Machines, Leidos, Saronic Technologies, Galliano Marine Services, PacMar Technologies, Birdon, and Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII). Each successful at-sea design is to receive $15 million and stay eligible for follow-on production; the Navy's May press release sets October 2026 as the at-sea testing deadline, run with surrogate vessels.
The pivot was designed to skip a traditional prototype phase. "We're not building prototypes for prototypes' sake," Rebecca Gassler, the Navy's PAE for Robotic and Autonomous Systems, told Breaking Defense in March. The plan, she said, was to "test the capability on water and go straight into production," saving roughly a year. Secretary of the Navy John C. Phelan has framed MUSV publicly as a "market competition" tied to the "Golden Fleet" expansion.
MUSV boats must carry 25 metric tons of payload, sail 2,500 nautical miles, hold 25-plus knots in Sea State 4, and run autonomously. Modular containers for strike, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), and transport are designed to swap out without rebuilding the hull.
Blue Water Autonomy had been selected under MASC and was building its Liberty vessel when that award was pulled. The company does not, in the public complaint, quantify the sunk cost; the SAM.gov MUSV solicitation does not specify a single production path.
Funding scope for MUSV is reported inconsistently. Naval News reports $1.95 billion in fiscal 2026 plus $3 billion over five years. The Defense Post, citing the July 2025 "One Big Beautiful Bill," puts the figure at roughly $2.1 billion. The two reference different appropriations, and the Navy has not publicly reconciled them.
The protest runs on a clock that overlaps the program. At-sea testing for the seven winners is to wrap by October 2026, and any order from the court would land inside that window. If the court sets the evaluation aside, the Navy would have to redo the source-selection decision; if the court lets the award stand, the program moves toward production while Blue Water and Saildrone pursue the same procurement lane through other vehicles or the next round.