U.S. Navy Conducts First Partner-Ship Launch of Lightfish Surface Vessel in the Indian Ocean.

The U.S. Sixth Fleet confirmed the first launch of a Lightfish unmanned surface vessel from a partner nation ship during Exercise Cutlass Express 2026 near Seychelles. The test shows the Navy is preparing coalition forces to operate persistent drone vessels forward under degraded communications, expanding maritime surveillance without adding more U.S. ships.

U.S. Sixth Fleet has put a fresh marker down in the Western Indian Ocean, using Exercise Cutlass Express 2026 to prove that unmanned surface vessels can be deployed not only from U.S. ships, but from a partner nation’s deck under realistic connectivity constraints. On February 10, 2026, Commander Task Force 66 confirmed it had executed the first launch of a Lightfish unmanned surface vessel from a partner ship off Victoria, Seychelles, during a Feb. 9 “limited connection” event designed to stress control links and recovery procedures. The subtext was unmistakable: unmanned systems are being engineered to operate forward, distributed, and in coalition, rather than tethered to a U.S.-only support structure.
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Lightfish is a solar-powered unmanned surface vessel that can be launched and recovered from small ships, operate for months with limited connectivity, and carry modular sensors to extend maritime surveillance, track vessels via AIS, and support coalition patrols across vast sea areas (Picture source: U.S. Navy).

Lightfish is not a large experimental “robot ship” in the Ghost Fleet Overlord sense. It is a compact, man-portable USV built for persistence and modularity, measuring 11.4 feet long and 3.4 feet wide, with a composite hull and retractable keel for transport. Its performance envelope is intentionally modest: about 2 knots cruising speed and up to 4.5 knots sprint, trading dash for endurance that can stretch to six months and more than 6,000 nautical miles when solar conditions cooperate. Power is centered on a 415W solar array and a 4.0 kWh lithium-ion battery, with an optional methanol fuel cell providing a 100W boost on demand, a design choice aimed at keeping the vehicle on-station through poor weather cycles and long transits.

From an operator’s perspective, the “limited connection” aspect matters because Lightfish is built to continue executing a mission plan even when remote control is degraded. The platform’s baseline navigation and sensing suite includes GNSS/GPS, IMU, AIS transmit and receive capability, 2D LiDAR for close-range collision avoidance, and multiple onboard HD cameras, with software designed for automated “sense and avoid” behaviors at long range and tighter obstacle avoidance in congested waters. Payload integration is a central selling point: multiple physical ports support RS232, RS485, and Ethernet, with open APIs for “backseat driver” autonomy modules and third-party command-and-control integration, a technical posture aligned with the Navy’s push for modular open systems.

In the AFRICOM theater, where vast sea space and thinly spread patrol assets make “presence” expensive, a low-logistics USV like Lightfish can sit on likely smuggling routes, cue partner patrol boats, and extend surveillance around choke points and fishing grounds without consuming scarce crewed hulls. That is why Sixth Fleet leadership tied the launch to gray-zone competition and maritime security missions, arguing that unmanned tactics must be integrated directly into partner operations, not merely demonstrated near them. Rear Adm. Kelly Ward described the effort as translating innovation into warfighting readiness while enhancing maritime security and freedom of navigation, language that deliberately connects small unmanned craft to strategic deterrence.

The choice of a partner launch platform sharpened the tactical story: the Lightfish was deployed from the Seychelles Coast Guard auxiliary Saya De Malha (A605), a detail that underscores the Navy’s real objective: proving these systems can be packaged into allied maritime forces with minimal ship modifications. If a partner can launch a USV from its own deck, sustain it with local infrastructure, and share the track data back into a combined picture, the United States gains distributed sensing without permanently stationing additional U.S. ships in the theater.

This test also fits a visible development arc. Seasats has been pushing Lightfish as an ocean-proven, export-friendly platform with redundant communications options ranging from cellular and Iridium to Starlink and MANET radios, and an advertised launch-and-recovery cycle under 10 minutes without heavy shipboard handling gear. In parallel, real-world transits have supplied hard lessons about operating near peer competitors. In August 2025, a Lightfish transiting roughly 7,500 nautical miles from San Diego to Japan came within meters of China’s Type 055 destroyer Nanchang near Guam, a close encounter that highlights both the deterrent value and the escalation risk of uncrewed platforms operating in contested spaces.

The U.S. Navy has also used the craft to stress-test command and control concepts at scale. A Naval Information Warfare Center Atlantic-led Lightfish completed a fast transatlantic crossing in 2025, monitored across multiple fleets with deliberate handoffs of oversight, offering a preview of how future unmanned forces could be managed as an enterprise rather than as isolated prototypes. That experience maps directly onto Task Force 66’s stated posture: a fully uncrewed all-domain task force established in May 2024, currently operating 22 USVs and explicitly seeking to expand operational readiness and lethality as more assets come online.

Compared with what the U.S. Navy already fields, Lightfish fills a niche between disposable tactical drones and larger, more complex unmanned ships. Task Force 66 has experimented with other small USVs in swarm and infrastructure-defense scenarios, while the broader Navy portfolio includes dedicated mine countermeasure craft and larger unmanned prototypes intended to carry heavier sensors or weapons. Lightfish’s differentiator is not speed or payload mass but the combination of persistence, open integration, and partner-friendly handling. Other navies are moving in parallel with mine-hunting USVs and armed drone boats, but the Seychelles launch highlights a uniquely American operational emphasis: using unmanned systems to multiply allied maritime capacity in regions where day-to-day competition is fought through surveillance, boarding operations, and law enforcement-like missions as much as through classic naval combat.

After the Cutlass Express milestone, the next step is unlikely to be a single big follow-on test. The more consequential path is iterative: repeating partner-deck launches with different ship classes, expanding operations in deliberately communications-degraded conditions, and plugging Lightfish feeds into combined maritime operations centers to validate interoperability. Task Force 66’s continued involvement in multinational unmanned exercises suggests Lightfish will be evaluated not just as a sensor picket but as one element in larger, mixed fleets of uncrewed systems. In that sense, the Seychelles launch was the opening move in a campaign to make unmanned maritime systems routine, coalition-ready tools rather than occasional demonstrations.

Written by Evan Lerouvillois, Defense Analyst.

Evan studied International Relations, and quickly specialized in defense and security. He is particularly interested in the influence of the defense sector on global geopolitics, and analyzes how technological innovations in defense, arms export contracts, and military strategies influence the international geopolitical scene.