The Israeli news channel i24NEWS has reported that a heavy-duty robotic submarine, known as the “Dive-LD” and manufactured by the company Anduril, has fallen completely intact into Iranian hands in the Strait of Hormuz.
According to the Israeli channel, the submarine is valued at $2.5 million, weighs 3 tons, measures 6 meters in length, and is constructed from 3D-printed carbon fiber.
It is capable of operating autonomously for ten days and diving to a depth of 6,000 meters—a mission intended for the protection of telecommunications cables in the Gulf of Oman—before its computer system suddenly shut down during the operation.
Reasons for the Malfunction and U.S. Concerns
The channel cited U.S. Navy spokesperson Captain Tim Hawkins, who acknowledged that the submarine suffered a major malfunction, lost communication, and remained adrift for over a day before being discovered by the Iranians.
The failure of the unit to self-destruct is attributed to U.S. safety protocols, which prohibit the installation of explosive charges to avoid potential harm to sailors or vessels in busy shipping lanes. Furthermore, the submarine proved difficult to detect, as its carbon-fiber construction and rounded, gray design are radar-absorbent. Although the Pentagon asserts that encryption keys and software are automatically wiped, engineers in Washington fear that Iran could exploit the submarine’s physical components which serve as a development platform for the “Ghost Shark” submersible through reverse engineering. They point to the 2011 incident in which an RQ-170 stealth spy drone was captured.
The channel noted that, at the time, “Washington claimed that Tehran would be unable to do anything with the airframe; yet, within a few years, the Iranians had reverse-engineered it and created a fleet of stealth drones that remain in service for both them and Russia to this day.”
The Israeli channel continued: “The Pentagon may hope that erasing the encryption keys will limit the damage, but the history of the Middle East has proven that Tehran is patient. The Iranians do not need the computer itself; they have already obtained everything necessary to replicate its physical components. Is it possible that the U.S. military has just handed its adversary the key to controlling the next underwater war?”
Source: Israeli media (translated and edited by Al-Manar English Website)