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CiS, a leading European developer of autonomous aerial systems, today announced the introduction of ORKA Dock - a fully automatic launch and recovery hangar for its ORKA Uncrewed Aerial System (UAS). The announcement was made on the opening day of the Combined Naval Event, a maritime conference and exhibition taking place in Farnborough, UK.
ORKA is CiS's long-range tactical drone, developed for aerial surveillance, reconnaissance, and inspection missions over land and water. Delivering 75 minutes of endurance with a 5.0 kg mission payload capacity, ORKA provides operators with persistent awareness across a broad spectrum of operational scenarios.
Automated launch and landing from a moving platform has been a core capability of ORKA since its introduction. The new ORKA Dock now extends and refines that capability into a fully self-contained, fully-enclosed, go-anywhere deployment solution.
Designed and built in Germany using sovereign components, the system enables the ORKA to launch, return-to-home, and recharge entirely without any operator intervention - from ships, uncrewed surface vessels, land vehicles, and expeditionary sites. Its compact design integrates fast recharging, optional tether capability, and battery-backup operation, ensuring continuous mission readiness with the capability to open and launch in under 30 seconds.
Prior to today's announcement, CiS conducted a live demonstration of the ORKA Dock at SeaSEC 2026, the international naval security exercise held in April 2026 in Rostock, Germany. The demonstration marked the first operational deployment of the ORKA Dock aboard a moving USV in an operational environment. The system was integrated aboard the back deck of Q-RECON 24, a high-speed, long-range USV developed by FLANQ, CiS' strategic partner in the maritime domain.
Operating daily over the course of two weeks, in missions ranging from offshore energy asset protection to harbour security, the ORKA Dock successfully demonstrated automatic launch and recovery of ORKA while the Q-RECON 24 was underway, validating the system's proprietary Precision Landing System (PLS), which enables autonomous recovery onto a moving and pitching surface.
The exercise confirmed the dock's performance at platform speeds of up to 15 knots, meeting the demands of naval customers seeking persistent, multi-domain intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capability.
Speaking at CNE , Tom Kaufman, Founder and CEO of CiS said: "SeaSEC was a landmark moment for CiS and for autonomous naval aviation more broadly. Achieving fully autonomous launch and recovery from a moving USV in a live exercise environment - without any operator intervention - is something that has never been done before. We believe it to be a world first.
The ORKA and ORKA Dock, working collaboratively with FLANQ USVs, give navies, coast guards, and maritime security operators the persistent aerial capability they need, deployable from virtually any surface asset. We're excited to debut this technology at the Combined Naval Event and look forward to moving into full-scale production."
