The Coast Guard buys Mission Specialist Defender ROVs to keep divers out of the water
Federal maritime service; port and waterway operations · Underwater inspection and dive team search · Vendor published
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The job
The United States Coast Guard inspects piers and hulls, surveys subsurface infrastructure, responds to disasters and runs search and rescue in water that is often dark, cold and fast moving. In December 2025 it awarded AeroVironment's VideoRay unit a $4.8 million contract for Mission Specialist Defender remotely operated vehicles under its Force Design 2028 modernization plan, so that a tethered ROV can do the first look and much of the work a diver used to do. The Coast Guard's robotics and autonomous systems office framed the purchase as speed, safety and readiness together.
The shop
The award was the largest piece of $11 million the Coast Guard executed in fiscal year 2025 for rapid autonomous fleet upgrades (published-by-vendor); the service has said it intends to invest nearly $350 million in robotics and autonomous systems under Force Design 2028 (reported-by-trade-press)
The equipment
VideoRay Mission Specialist Defender, a seven thruster, 1,000 meter rated ROV built on the Mission Specialist platform; unit count not published
The published numbers
$4.8 million contract value (published-by-vendor); largest of $11 million in fiscal year 2025 rapid autonomous fleet upgrades (published-by-vendor); the same model is the basis of the Navy's Maritime Expeditionary Standoff Response program, a $92.6 million production contract in May 2024 and a $30.7 million five-year follow-on from Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific in March 2025 (published-by-vendor); nearly $350 million planned Coast Guard investment in robotics and autonomous systems (reported-by-trade-press). Unit count: not published. Delivery schedule: not published. Diver hours avoided: not published.
Where a source did not publish a figure, this entry says so rather than guessing.
What we would check before believing it applies to you
This is a procurement account, not a performance account: it proves that two federal maritime services standardized on one ROV model, and it proves nothing about inspection hours or costs, which no source publishes. For a police marine unit, sheriff's dive team or harbor patrol the useful read is simpler: the aircraft class a dive team drops in the water instead of a diver now has a federal reference customer, and the maker builds in Pennsylvania, which matters wherever a solicitation carries a domestic manufacture clause. Two things to check before quoting on the strength of it. First, the Coast Guard bought a Defender configuration with its own payloads and training; a smaller agency doing search and recovery may be better served by the Pro 5 or Ally in the same family, and the price difference is real. Second, an ROV replaces the first dive, not the dive team: recovery, evidence handling and anything requiring hands in the water still needs certified divers, so budget the machine as a force multiplier and a safety tool rather than a headcount cut. Ownership changed twice in eighteen months, BlueHalo and then AeroVironment, so confirm support terms and parts lead times in writing.
Sources
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