The Pentagon ’s crewless golem ship has fired its very first projectile .
The US Department of Defense ( DoD)shared a videoof the Unmanned Surface Vessel ( USV)Rangerlaunching a Standard Missile-6 ( SM-6 ) in a test for the US Navy ’s Ghost Fleet experimentation plan . TheSM-6is a ship - found 6.6 - meter ( 21.5 feet ) rocket contrive for anti - air war and anti - ship tap . It can also protect ship by intercepting incoming ballistic missile .
apart from this flashy video montage ( turn the sound on for the epic accompany music ) , minuscule else is known about the missile launching , although the Pentagon has antecedently release selective information about its fleet of crewless ship , jazz asGhost Fleet Overlord .
Back in June 2021 , the DoDannounced the successof a second long - grasp journey of an autonomous ship after an uncrewed vessel , namedNomad , traveled 8,187 kilometers ( 4,421 nautical miles ) from the Caribbean Sea , passing through the Panama Canal , to the Pacific Coast . Remarkably , up to 98 percent of this journey was complete in autonomous mode , destitute from human program line . Ranger , the watercraft that late establish the missile , completed a exchangeable passage in October 2020 . Two extra Ghost Fleet Overlord uncrewed ships are presently under mental synthesis and will be used in the Navy ’s experimentation and testing of this novel technology .
golem armed services ghost ship firing warheads might sound like something direct out of a dystopian nightmare , butautonomous ships are potential to make a huge splash in the coming years .
Even beyond military program program , there is a mountain chain of vantage to crewless vessels in civilian seafaring . Three - quarters of marine stroke are make byhuman errorand AI eventually could leaven to be significantly safer than a human helm . Crewless ship could be built light , postulate less space for the gang , reducing fuel phthisis , environmental impact , and cost . There are currentlysome downside , such as reliability , issues of liability , and the threat of cyberattacks , to name a few . However , it looks like the geological era of the crewless ship is upon us .
