03 September 2020

Lockheed Martin looks to expand partnerships in Australia and New Zealand

by Jon Grevatt

Lockheed Martin is looking to expand its engagement with businesses in Australia and New Zealand through a recent series of ‘online sessions’ aimed at supporting the Australian Defence Force (ADF), the company said on 3 September.

Lockheed Martin Australia said that the engagement with local companies will be focused on “development and collaboration opportunities [on] next-generation technologies across defence multi-domains”.

Lockheed Martin is looking to expand partnerships in Australia to work on programmes that are expected to include AGM-158C long-range anti-ship missiles. (Lockheed Martin)

It added that the online sessions covered capability themes including integrated air and missile defence, battle management systems, strike weapons, precision fires, and close combat systems and sensors. About 230 attendees from local industry attended the sessions, it said.

Major Australian defence programmes that Lockheed Martin is involved in include the production and support of F-35 fighter aircraft; the development and integration of combat systems onboard Australia’s next-generation Attack-class submarines; and support for MH-60R ‘Romeo’ multirole naval helicopters, C-130J Hercules transport aircraft, and P-3 Orion maritime surveillance aircraft.

The company is also supplying Australia with AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles (JASSMs), providing training services for pilots through the Air 5428 programme, and is bidding for Australia’s Air 6500 ‘joint air battle management system’ programme.

The latter of these projects was the focus of a series of work packages recently published by Lockheed Martin on the Industry Capability Network (ICN) portal, an Australian business networking facility supported by the government.

Lockheed Martin is looking to expand its engagement with businesses in Australia and New Zealand thr...

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