Americas
BAE Systems Technology won a $67 million deal to exercise fiscal 2024 options to provide support services for the US Trident II D5 Strategic Weapon Systems program, the Attack Weapon System program, and the Nuclear Weapon Security program. This contract award also benefits a foreign military sale to the United Kingdom. Work will be performed in Rockville, Maryland; Washington, DC; Saint Marys, Georgia; Cape Canaveral, Florida; Rochester, United Kingdom; Bremerton, Washington; Portsmouth, Virginia. Work is expected to be completed Sept. 30, 2024.
Lockheed Martin won a $63.8 million deal for establishment of the AEGIS Canadian Surface Combatant land-based test site in New Jersey. This contract involves Foreign Military Sales to the Royal Canadian Navy. Work will be performed in Moorestown, New Jersey; Clearwater, Florida; Orlando, Florida; and Owego, New York, and is expected to be completed by November 2026. Foreign Military Sales (Canada) funds in the amount of $63,820,154 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.
Middle East and Africa
South Africa is experiencing a significant upswing in its arms exports during the first half of 2023, setting the stage for potentially surpassing the previous year’s totals. If current trends persist, the nation is on course to export substantially more military hardware and munitions this year than it did in 2022, as the first six months of 2023 are already approaching the total for the entire previous year. In the first half of 2023 alone, the National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC) gave the green light to exports valued at R3.8 billion for munitions, a substantial increase from the R1.4 billion approved during the same period in 2022.
Europe
UAV Communications won an $8.3 million deal for the ongoing sustainment, management, development, and network administration of the United Kingdom MQ-9 Reaper Operation Centers. Work will be performed at Royal Air Force Waddington, United Kingdom; and Creech Air Force Base, Nevada, and is expected to be completed by March 31, 2025.
BAE Systems and Hybrid Air Vehicles have agreed to jointly explore a long-range hybrid airship system for security and defense applications. Hybrid’s Airlander 10 will be trialed for new ways of communication and intelligence gathering, says BAE. The Airlander 10 can stay airborne for up to five days while fitted with a range of payloads such as computing, communications, surveillance, and reconnaissance.
Asia-Pacific
Militaries from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations began their first-ever joint exercises on Tuesday in Indonesia, with a Myanmar representative present despite the bloc’s ban on its junta leaders. ASEAN countries have participated in multinational defense drills before, but these are the first featuring just the bloc, which is battling perceptions of irrelevance on major regional issues such as the turmoil in Myanmar and disputes in the South Cina Sea.
Today’s Video
WATCH: UGM-133A Trident II,The U.S.’s Primary Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile.
