American defence company Lockheed Martin has received a modification to a previously awarded contract for technical engineering and management efforts for the Australia Surface Combatant program.
According to the US Department of Defence (DoD) contract notice, this contract involves Foreign Military Sales to the government of Australia. Part of the work scheduled under the contract will be performed in New Jersey and some of the work in Adelaide, Australia.
The company expects to complete the work by September 2025.
Foreign Military Sales (Australia) funding in the amount of $60 million will be obligated at the time of award and Naval Sea Systems Command is the contracting activity.
In January 2020, US State Department made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to Australia of long-lead items, engineering development activities, and other defense services to support the Australian Surface Combatant program for an estimated cost of $1.5 billion.
The Government of Australia requested the sale of several items to support the modernization of the three Hobart-class destroyers, and the construction of the first three (of nine total) Hunter-class frigates.
With this sale, the Australian government expected to enhance self-defense capability, while significantly improving interoperability with US Navy AEGIS combatants in the region.
Last December, Lockheed Martin was awarded a contract to support the upgrade of the Aegis combat system on the Royal Australian Navy’s (RAN) fleet of three Hobart-class destroyers. his contract forms part of a rolling wave of upgrades that are expected to ensure Australia’s sea-based integrated air and missile defense capabilities to protect deployed naval forces.
Two months ago, the Royal Australian Navy launched a new maintenance model to ensure its fleet is effectively sustained. The new program is called Horizon 3 and is part of Plan Galileo.
Australian Navy expects that the tonnage of the fleet will increase by 132 per cent in key regions across Australia from 2010 to 2048.