GAO: SEAL Delivery System budgeted for $70 million has cost $885 million, may be cancelled

Above: The ASDS skimming at the surface.

A troubled submarine that delivers SEALs to beaches is over budget and underperforming, and the U.S. Navy is as much to blame as the contractor.
That is the conclusion of a new Government Accountability Office assessment of the Advanced SEAL Delivery System program, a system that was supposed to cost $70 million but so far has cost $885 million for a single vehicle, and may be cancelled and replaced next year, the GAO reported.

The ASDS is a 65-foot dry-interior submersible vehicle that launches from a larger submarine to deliver Navy special operators known as SEALs to their secret missions.

The U.S. Navy awarded the $70 million development contract to Westinghouse Electric Corp. in 1994; two years later the company was purchased by Northrop Grumman, which continues the work. The first version was supposed to be delivered in 1997; it was not delivered until 2001 and was only officially accepted by the Navy in 2003. It remains the only boat delivered on the contract.

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