“The ability to counter undersea mine threats remains fundamental to maritime security and naval mission success,” Rob Geckle, CEO of Thales North America, said, framing the Pentagon’s newest contract as a direct investment in sailor safety and fleet readiness.
The $53.9 million US Navy contract: scope, timelines, and ceiling
Advanced Acoustic Concepts, a U.S. defense subsidiary of Thales Group, won a $53.9 million contract from the U.S. Navy to deliver at least two remote mine hunting (RMH) modules. The award includes engineering support for the modules and carries optionality: the program can grow to a maximum potential value of $196.2 million for subsequent modules. The first two modules are scheduled for delivery by October 2029, with potential follow-on modules slated for delivery through 2039 and beyond.
What the RMH modules bring: SAMDIS 600 sonar and AI analysis
The RMH comes equipped with Thales’ SAMDIS 600 sonar, which Thales says provides high-resolution imaging of potential mines, paired with an artificial intelligence software package intended to let sailors analyze data "quickly and accurately," according to Thales. Thales also reported that the SAMDIS 600 was recently tested on an unmanned underwater vehicle supplied by HII during a mine countermeasures exercise.
Tony Lengerich, vice president of naval programs with Thales Defense & Security, Inc., described a technical advantage: SAMDIS 600 uses a three-beam system that gives “a highly improved probability of certainty” in a single sweep through a minefield. “You get three looks at an object instead of just one look,” Lengerich said. “Those three pictures, if you will, really increase the certainty that you’re looking at a mine, not a Volkswagen somebody tossed in the ocean somewhere. So, speed of detection, speed of certainty, is now what we’re improving.”
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End the scrambleIntegration with HII systems: REMUS 620, Odyssey, and the Sea Launcher
Thales and HII announced a joint deployment that paired the SAMDIS 600 with HII’s REMUS 620 unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV), which HII markets as capable of long-range, multi-day operations. The firms used Thales’ Expeditionary Portable Operation Center as the operational hub, combined with HII’s Odyssey command-and-control software to plan and manage missions. According to the companies’ joint news release, that combination allowed operators to program the UUV to scout minefields, send back data, and continue searching autonomously.
The exercise also employed HII’s automated launch and recovery system, Sea Launcher, to deploy and retrieve the REMUS vehicle. HII presented the launcher as a way to pair with either manned or unmanned systems and to reduce the need for sailors to undertake launch-and-recovery tasks in contested waters.
Sailor safety and neutralization: launch/recovery and ANGLER effectors
Both companies framed the program around keeping sailors out of minefields. “Keeping the sailor out of the field is a critical part of that,” Nicholas Green, senior manager of international business development with HII, told Breaking Defense. Green added that getting equipment into and out of the water “has always been a difficult part of what we do,” describing the Sea Launcher as a next iteration for medium-sized UUV launch and recovery.
After sonar data collection and analysis, teams in the exercise reportedly used Advanced Acoustic Concepts’ ANGLER underwater effector to neutralize detected mines, illustrating a full sensor-to-shooter sequence in the live experiment the companies described.
What this means for the U.S. Navy, Thales, and sailors
- U.S. Navy: The contract funds nearer-term capability deliveries (two RMH modules by October 2029) and preserves options for an expanded fleet of modules up to the $196.2 million ceiling, enabling the Navy to scale mine-hunting capability over the next decade.
- Thales and HII (contractors): The award formalizes work already demonstrated in joint exercises—integrating SAMDIS 600 with HII’s REMUS 620, Odyssey planning software, and Sea Launcher—potentially positioning the firms to supply sensor, platform, and launch-and-recovery subsystems together.
- Sailors and operators: The program emphasizes reducing human exposure to minefields via remote sensing, automated launch/recovery, and effectors—speeding detection and increasing "certainty" before neutralization, per Thales and HII statements.
The contract lands against a backdrop in which mine countermeasure operations have featured prominently in recent U.S. military activity; the source notes that U.S. Central Command launched mine-clearing missions in the Strait of Hormuz in April as part of Operation Epic Fury, and that President Donald Trump said in August that mines in the waterway were cleared. Whether the RMH modules and their follow-on buys will be deployed to those theaters, or how many modules the Navy ultimately exercises under the contract ceiling, will be visible only as deliveries and tasking decisions unfold through 2029 and into the 2030s.
Source: Breaking Defense — Thales subsidiary lands US Navy contract for remote mine hunting modules
