Concept rendering of Tempest banking low over the ocean in golden-hour light

We make drones
that
can fly
and swim.

Thesis

Unmanned systems changed the battlefield. Hybrid platforms are the next evolution.

Concept of Operations

We close the air–sea gap.

Concept of operations Diagram, not to scale. Tempest flies to the area of operations, enters the water, travels beneath a surface vessel, then breaches near the shoreline and flies away.
  1. 01

    Air transit

    Fixed-wing flight to the area of operations.

  2. 02

    Water entry

    Transition from flight to subsurface operation.

  3. 03

    Subsurface transit

    Low-signature movement and loiter beneath the surface.

  4. 04

    Breach and egress

    Exit the water and return to flight.

Mission areas

Built for missions that cross the waterline.

  • Littoral ISR

    Attritable intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance in contested coastal waters, from the air and below the surface.

  • Mine counter­measures

    Countering naval mines, a mission set that spans the air, the surface, and the water column.

  • One-way strike

    One-way strike in the littorals, using a low-cost airframe that can approach by air or from below the surface.

Status

Building towards real-world deployment.

Premise validated by warfighters. Platform validated in simulation. Real-world testing underway.

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TRL 4Component and/or breadboard validation in laboratory environment.

Team

Founded by MIT engineers who build hardware.

  • Portrait of Jorge Cavazos

    Jorge Cavazos

    COO & Co-Founder

    MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics.
    Prev. Oligo Space, MIT Bioinstrumentation Lab.

  • Portrait of Alex Rice

    Alex Rice

    CTO/CFO & Co-Founder

    MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
    Prev. Draper, MIT Lincoln Lab, MITRE, NASA.
    IEEE published.

  • Portrait of Joel Santiago-Baretti

    Joel Santiago-Baretti

    CEO & Co-Founder

    MIT Mechanical Engineering.
    Prev. Stealth Startup and MIT TTDD Lab.
    IEEE published.

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Government / Industry

Briefings for program offices, units, and labs evaluating multi-domain unmanned systems.

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Investors

Talk directly with the founders about Kairox and the Tempest program.

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