Lockheed Martin completed 500 hours of reliability testing on the U.S. Navy's Remote Multi-Mission Vehicle (RMMV), marking a critical testing milestone.

The system will provide mine reconnaissance capabilities to the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS).

RMMV is an unmanned, semi-submersible, semi-autonomous vehicle that tows a variable-depth sensor that can detect and identify undersea threats.

"RMMV is critical to the Navy's mine countermeasures," said Richard Holmberg, vice president of mission and unmanned systems at Lockheed Martin's Mission Systems and Sensors business.

"As this testing demonstrates, we are making significant progress toward the system's operational use aboard the Littoral Combat Ship."

The testing, completed ahead of schedule, was conducted offshore near Palm Beach, Fla., and concludes the first of three planned development and testing cycles aimed to improve system reliability and operational availability for the Remote Minehunting System (RMS).

RMS is composed of the RMMV, its launch-and-retrieval system, the RMMV-towed sonar sensor and advanced communications equipment and software.