Lockheed Martin and the F-35 Joint Program Office have finalized a $30 billion contract for the production and delivery of up to 398 F-35 aircraft.
The contract includes the U.S., its international partners and Foreign Military Sales aircraft in Lots 15 and 16, with the option for Lot 17, Lockheed Martin announced from Arlington, Virginia last week.
“Continuing to add new countries to our global F-35 fleet further validates the capability and affordability of this aircraft in providing 21st Century Security to nations and allies,” emphasized Bridget Lauderdale, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 program.
Under the award, Lockheed Martin will provide 145 aircraft for Lot 15, 127 for Lot 16 and up to 126 for the Lot 17 option, which includes the first F-35 aircraft for Belgium, Finland and Poland.
These aircraft will be the first to contain Technical Refresh-3, a modernized hardware necessary for utilizing Block 4 capabilities. The technology is equipped with a novel integrated core processor with strong computing power, a panoramic cockpit display and an improved memory unit.
Aircraft provided under the agreement will expand the global F-35 fleet, which reached 894 vessels following 141 deliveries in 2022.
In the same year, Finland, Germany and Switzerland signed Letters of Offer and Acceptance to progress their procurement of F-35 aircraft.
“The F-35 is the world’s premier multi-mission, 5th-generation weapon system, and the modernized Block 4 capabilities these new aircraft will bring to bear strengthens not just capability, but interoperability with our allies and partners across land, sea, air and cyber domains,” said U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Mike Schmidt, program executive officer of the F-35 Joint Program Office.
With participants across 17 countries, the F-35 program has trained nearly 2,000 pilots and more than 13,000 maintenance personnel. The fleet holds a total flight time of over 602,000 cumulative hours.
Lockheed Martin is sponsoring GovCon Wire’s 2023 Space Acquisition Forum, which will bring experts in the field together to address global challenges, technological developments, emerging best practices and new threats within the space acquisition on January 18. To learn more about the virtual event and register to attend, please visit GovCon Wire’s events page.