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Gathered in a temporary maritime operations center in Arlington, Virginia, military, industry and political leaders watched multiple satellite images flash onto large monitor screens. These images showed three types of drug-running vessels hundreds of miles away in the Atlantic Ocean — a small, fast, highly maneuverable boat capable of transferring illicit cargo between ships on the high seas; a support ship with a crane for loading and unloading contraband; and a tugboat serving as the recipient ship for smuggling cargo into the U.S. The scenario was part of a larger July 2023 experimentation event designed to emulate drug-smuggling activities in the maritime domain as well as efforts to deter the flow of such contraband. Called the SCOUT Main Experimentation Event, the two-week exercise involved partners such as the Office of Naval Research (ONR), Joint Inter-Agency Task Force-South (JIATF-S), U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), and numerous naval warfare centers and industry and academic partners. Chief of Naval Research Rear Adm. Kurt Rothenhaus, who was one of several ONR leaders at the maritime operations center, said, “I’m truly impressed by the innovation, teaming and analytic rigor you’ve all brought to this exercise. Your pioneering approach is leading the way for us to learn faster with new partners to tackle the hardest operational challenges.”

Student engineering teams from Princeton, Washington College and the University of Alabama have won first place in their respective events at the “Promoting Electric Propulsion” (PEP) boat races, sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and the American Society of Naval Engineers (ASNE). In just six years, this electric boat-building competition has grown from a single university to 34, with more than 200 students who took part in the five-mile races on Broad Bay in Virginia Beach. Dr. Steve Russell, program officer, Sea Warfare and Weapons department, said he launched the PEP competition with a colleague from ASNE, Dr. Leigh McCue, and Tim Cullis, Naval Sea Warfare Center Carderock, after seeing a public race by local hobbyists in the Chesapeake Bay.

The Directed Energy Weapons Division is part of the Office of Naval Research's Naval Air Warfare and Weapons Department (Code 35).

The Laser Weapons and Combat System Integration Program is part of the Office of Naval Research's Naval Air Warcraft and Weapons Department.

The High Energy Lasers Program is part of the Office of Naval Research's Naval Air Warfare and Weapons Department.

The ONR 33 NEPTUNE Program is a two-year pilot program providing funding to five universities, the U.S. Naval Academy and the Naval Postgraduate School. Its goals are to help the Navy and Marine Corps discover ways to improve energy conservation, generate renewable energy and implement energy-efficient technologies—while giving active-duty military, military students and veterans the chance to immerse themselves in university-level research.

The Office of Naval Research's Fuel Flexibility for Contingency Operations program comprises basic and applied research to support naval needs for operational energy resilience and sustained operations when conventional fuels are not abundantly available. This program seeks technological breakthroughs to enable the generation of synthetic fuels from abundant and logistically compatible resources.

The Office of Naval Research's Advanced Power and Energy for Undersea Applications program aims to develop component, subsystem and system technologies for advanced high-energy density and power density propulsion systems, and to enable increased endurance and reliability in an air-independent environment.