Olga Ortiz was part of a nine-person team that lived on a small ship, either at sea or in port in Long Beach, California, and conducted daily Echo Voyager testing. Work sometimes began with the ship towing the XLUUV to open water as early as 3:30 a.m.

She joined Boeing after receiving her engineering degree at the University of Puerto Rico, attending classes even while the school was left without electrical power for months by the country’s worst natural disaster, Hurricane Maria. Ortiz was pleasantly surprised to find that Boeing developed unmanned undersea vehicles.

“Autonomy is the future,” she said. “I never thought it would be like this. We design something related to the vehicle and, a week later, we’re testing it. How cool is that?”

Gaurav Bansal, Echo Voyager program’s mission planner, worked on autonomous parking technology in the auto industry before joining Boeing and being assigned to Echo Ranger, a smaller unmanned undersea vehicle. He saw the potential for maritime autonomy when Echo Ranger was tasked with locating the sunken USS Independence aircraft carrier off the California coast and checking it for possible oil leaks.

With Echo Voyager, the opportunities multiply. To support search and rescue, a fleet of vehicles could be deployed at less cost than a fully manned ship. Commercially, the XLUUV has the ability to map fishing locations and seasons.

“No one has the capability of our vehicle — it’s going to change so much,” Bansal said. “Twenty years from now, I will say I helped start this.”

As Meghan Guerrero conducted a routine underwater inspection of Boeing’s extra-large unmanned undersea vehicle, something else drew her attention. Glancing to her left, she saw an enormous whale floating in the depths nearby.

“It was the size of an 18-wheeler,” Guerrero said. “That big thing was amazing.”

With that, the curious whale dived down and was gone.

Guerrero’s workplace is unlike any other at Boeing. The support swimmer and systems engineer from Huntington Beach, California, works with a partner to monitor and make adjustments to Echo Voyager in the water.

To be certified for the role, Guerrero took part in a weeklong class in open water, where an instructor evaluated her response to directives under various conditions.

Her resilience helps. It’s not unusual for Guerrero to wake up at 2 a.m. and put on a wetsuit and a head lamp to support her team during a mission. The weather can change without warning, creating large swells and strong currents. Her work has to be precise at any hour.

“I can tell you the size and spec of every single bolt on that vehicle,” Guerrero said.

And what a whale looks like up close.