Project NORTHSTAR

Project NORTHSTAR is a concept study for an aviation-enhanced Maritime Uncrewed Systems Support Ship developed in support of Royal Canadian Navy mission planning. At roughly ten thousand tonnes and one hundred and fifty metres on a commercial-derived OPV-plus hull, the platform is built around a single controlling idea: it is a mission garage, not a carrier. The general arrangement is organised around a central modular mission bay with stern and side handling for uncrewed underwater and surface systems, an integrated workshop core, and a long aft UAV mission deck sized for hybrid fixed-wing VTOL air vehicles. A compact forward superstructure and a clean integrated mast preserve seakeeping for a three-ocean operating envelope spanning the North Atlantic, the North Pacific, and Arctic-adjacent waters. Self-defence is deliberately modest. NORTHSTAR is not a destroyer substitute, not an amphibious platform, and not a prestige flagship. The studio's renderings emphasise the restraint of the design language: a working naval support vessel whose value lives in its modularity, its data spine, and the systems it carries — not in its silhouette.