U.S. Navy Tests BlackSea GARC and Seasats Lightfish in Norway

The U.S. Navy is running an exercise called Arctic Sentry 2026 off the coast of northern Norway through May 24, putting unmanned surface vessels and underwater drones through their paces in cold-climate maritime operations.

The two surface platforms identified in the exercise are the Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft, known as GARC, built by BlackSea Technologies in Baltimore, and the Lightfish unmanned surface vessel, built by Seasats in San Diego.

Both are being deployed alongside unmanned underwater systems for threat detection, target identification, neutralization, and explosive ordnance disposal operations.

The exercise is based out of Ramsund Naval Base and Breivika Bay in northern Norway, within operational range of the Barents Sea.

“Our deployment of sophisticated unmanned surface and underwater vehicles in the High North marks a landmark moment,” said Vice Admiral Jeffrey T. “J.T.” Anderson, commander of the U.S. Sixth Fleet, per the exercise announcement.

The GARC and What BlackSea Has Built

The Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft is a 16-foot (4.9-meter) unmanned surface vessel capable of carrying a 1,000-pound (454-kilogram) payload, with both remote and autonomous control options.

BlackSea Technologies has delivered more than 350 GARCs to the U.S. Navy and is currently producing the platform at a rate of about eight vessels per week from the former Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard in Baltimore, per BlackSea’s company announcements.

The GARC is designed to support intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions, communications relay, and mine countermeasures. Its appearance in Norway is the platform’s introduction to sustained Arctic operations, after thousands of operational hours logged in other Navy theaters.

The U.S. Navy awarded BlackSea a major procurement contract in 2024 that ramped GARC production to its current high rate.

The Lightfish and What Seasats Has Built

The Lightfish USV is a 12-foot (3.7-meter) solar-powered autonomous craft designed for multi-month endurance missions with a modular payload bay.

The platform set a notable record in 2025 when it completed a 4,000-mile autonomous voyage from the U.S. East Coast to Portugal, beating the previous USV crossing record by more than twelve days with minimal wear beyond surface barnacles, per Seasats’ own reporting.

In February 2026, the U.S. Navy test-launched an Interceptor Lightfish from a Seychelles Coast Guard ship, expanding the platform’s operational profile beyond persistent surveillance into faster-tempo missions.

Seasats received a U.S. Navy production award of up to $89.2 million in support of the Marine Corps, set to deliver what the contract describes as “low hundreds” of Lightfish autonomous surface vehicles, per Defense Daily reporting.

Why Arctic Sentry Exists

As The Barents Observer reports, NATO officially launched Arctic Sentry in February 2026 as a multi-domain enhanced Vigilance Activity, or eVA, intended to strengthen the alliance’s presence in the High North in response to Russian military activity in the region.

Arctic Sentry is led by Joint Force Command Norfolk, with strategic direction from Allied Command Operations. Unlike a single exercise, it is structured as a year-round vigilance posture that integrates the national activities of NATO allies operating in the Arctic into one coherent operational approach.

The activation of Arctic Sentry follows the same model NATO has applied with Eastern Sentry and Baltic Sentry, where naval and aerial patrols are strengthened across specific regional theaters as a response to evolving threats.

“These manoeuvres are a critical step in developing our unmanned capabilities in the Arctic,” said Captain Jeremy Wheat, commander of Naval Task Force 68, per the exercise announcement.

Cold Weather Is Where Maritime Autonomy Gets Tested

Arctic conditions are the toughest operating environment for unmanned maritime platforms. Sea ice damages hulls and sensors, freezing spray accumulates on antennas, GPS accuracy degrades at high latitudes, battery performance falls off in low temperatures, and the search-and-rescue picture changes completely when a platform fails in waters that kill humans in minutes.

A USV that works in temperate seas is not the same machine that has to survive the Norwegian Sea in cold conditions.

Arctic Sentry 2026 is a test bed for finding out which platforms can transition into Arctic-grade missions without major engineering changes. That is meaningful information for the U.S. Navy as it scales up its unmanned fleet and decides which platforms get deployed where.

“By combining advanced autonomous systems with Norwegian expertise in these environments, we are enhancing both situational awareness,” said Commodore Kyrre Haugen, Chief of Fleet for the Royal Norwegian Navy, per the announcement.

DroneXL’s Take

This is the moment the U.S. Navy’s unmanned surface vessel program moves into the operational theater that matters most for NATO deterrence.

BlackSea Technologies producing GARCs at eight per week from a Baltimore shipyard, combined with Seasats delivering Lightfish hulls under a nearly $90 million Marine Corps contract, signals that the unmanned surface vessel category has stopped being a prototype conversation and started being a procurement-at-scale conversation.

The Norwegian partnership is the other story. NATO has many allies, but only a few with serious Arctic maritime experience, and Norway is the indispensable one for any unmanned operations program that intends to scale north of the Arctic Circle.

Expect more exercises like Arctic Sentry, and expect them to include more allied navies as the model proves out.

Photo credit: U.S. Navy photo