The Hellenic Aerospace Industry (HAI) signed an MOU with the Israeli company ELTA Systems, a subsidiary of Israel Aerospace Industry (IAI), for the production of the autonomous unmanned underwater system Blue Whale.
The MOU was signed in the context of DEFEA 2025 by the President and CEO of HAI, Alexandros Diakopoulos, and the President and CEO of IAI, Boaz Levy. The President and CEO of HAI, Alexandros Diakopoulos, emphasized that “the Hellenic Aerospace Industry will fully undertake the construction part of Blue Whale as project management and for the electronic parts that we will manufacture for Greece and possibly, if necessary, for abroad if exports are made.”
Regarding the importance of such an acquisition, Diakopoulos noted that “the Blue Whale comes to solve the problem exactly where the greatest difficulty and the greatest need are. It is autonomous, but it can be transported by a Navy logistics ship. It has autonomy for even a week in the water, it is completely silent and gives you the full picture. It comes out only with the mast it has and transfers the image to the control center.” The Blue Whale has been developed and tested by the Israelis and has also been tested in other countries.
The BlueWhale, which has been developed by IAI, is a large unmanned underwater vehicle 10.9 meters long, 1.12 meters in diameter and weighing 5.5 tons. It can perform a wide range of maritime surveillance and intelligence gathering missions, such as surface data collection, submarine and underwater target detection, acoustic reconnaissance and mine detection on the seabed. The autonomous submarine can perform many of the missions of a manned submarine for several weeks, with minimal cost and maintenance needs and without exposing human resources to risk. BlueWhale has already successfully operated for thousands of dive hours and has proven its effectiveness in a variety of missions, such as Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR), Electronic Warfare and Support for Electronic Surveillance Measures (EW/ESM), and Mine Countermeasures (MCM).
