Boeing awarded $326M to support Poseidon | David’s Sling completes Interception Tests | Lockheed Martin tapped for Work on Korea’s F-35

Americas

The US Air Force contracted Goodrich Corp. with $92.9 million to help develop ISR Sensor technology. The deal includes Hyperspectral Imaging, AgilePod®, Standoff High Resolution Imaging Next Era, and Multi-Mode Lidar research and development. The company will help the Air Force Research Laboratory examine and integrate electro-optical, infrared, radio frequency, multispectral and hyperspectral imaging, lidar and related Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) systems. Goodrich Corporation supplies aerospace components, systems, and services for the commercial and general aviation airplane, and defense as well as space markets. The company provides a range of actuators, including primary and secondary flight controls, helicopter main and tail rotor actuation, engine and nacelle actuation, utility actuation, precision weapon actuation, and land vehicle actuation products, landing gear systems, and aircraft wheels and brakes. Work for the contract will take place in Westford, Massachusetts and is scheduled to be completed by September 29, 2025.

The Naval Air Systems Command awarded Boeing a $326.3 million Delivery Order to develop, integrate and test Increment 3 Block capabilities into the P-8A aircraft for the US Navy as well as the government of Australia. The P-8A Poseidon is derived from Boeing’s 737-800 and designed for anti-surface and submarine warfare, broad-area maritime missions, littoral operations, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. It features the Raytheon APY-10 multi-mission surface search radar. Work under the deal will take place in Washington, New York, Illinois, California, Maryland, Arizona, Missouri as well as Florida and is expected to be finished in March 2024.

Raytheon’s Enterprise Air Surveillance Radar (EASR) will begin live testing at Wallops Island Test Facility, the company announced on Tuesday. The EASR is the newest sensor in the US Navy’s SPY-6 family of radars. It is the Navy’s next generation radar for aircraft carriers and amphibious warfare that provides simultaneous anti-air and anti-surface warfare, electronic protection and air traffic control capabilities. The radar just recently completed subsystem testing at Raytheon’s Near Field Range in Sudbury, Massachusetts. Raytheon is building two variants of EASR: a single-face rotating array designated AN/SPY-6(V)2 for amphibious assault ships and Nimitz class carriers, and a three fixed-face array designated AN/SPY-6(V)3 for Ford class aircraft carriers and the future FFG(X) guided missile frigates. According to Raytheon, the radar will undergo system-level testing, tracking a variety of aircraft through the end of 2019 once it is up and running.

Middle East & Africa

Israel’s Missile Defense Organization and the US Missile Defense Agency successfully completed a series of interception tests with the David’s Sling weapon system. Israeli company Rafael carried out the experiments at a test site in southern Israel. During the trials, advanced capabilities of the David’s Sling missile system were tested in a new version developed for a number of scenarios to simulate future threats the system may face during a confrontation. David’s Sling is a joint Israeli-US project, with Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems collaborating with US defense contractor Raytheon. The weapon system is also called „Magic Wand“ and became operational in 2017. It is designed to intercept tactical ballistic missiles, medium- to long-range rockets, as well as cruise missiles fired with ranges of 40 to 300 km.

Europe

The US Air Force sent six B-52 long-range bombers to the UK for a series of training activities over Europe. The aircraft along with 450 airmen arrived at Royal Air Force Fairford on Thursday. The United States has deployed strategic bombers in Europe at least once a year since 2014. The current deployment marks the largest deployment of the bombers to Europe since Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. The Boeing B-52 is a long-range, subsonic, jet-powered strategic bomber that has been utilized by the US Air Force since the 1950s and can carry conventional as well as nuclear weapons. The current training activities will test how the bombers can conduct missions out of Fairford and will familiarize aircrews with operations over Europe, including the Norwegian Sea, Baltic Sea and the Mediterranean.

Asia-Pacific

KT Consulting won an $11.9 million firm-fixed-price task order for F-16 Weapons System support. The contract involves a Foreign Military Sale to Singapore. The F-16 Fighting Falcon is a single-engine, supersonic multirole fighter. Early fighters could be armed with up to six AIM-9 Sidewinder, heat-seeking, short-range air-to-air missiles (AAM), and radar guided AIM-7 Sparrow medium-range AAMs. The recent versions of the aircraft support AIM-120 AMRAAM. The Republic of Singapore Air Force operates 62 F-16 Fighting Falcons, all of which are advanced F-16C/D block 52 aircraft. These aircraft are equipped with state-of the-art armament, including AIM-120 AMRAAM as well as presumably the Israeli Python 4 missile linked to a DASH-3 Helmet Mounted Sight. Work will take place at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona and Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico and is scheduled to be finished by March 31, 2024. Fiscal 2019 operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $4,435,581 and Singapore National Funds in the amount of $34,969 are being obligated at the time of award.

The Naval Air Systems Command awarded Lockheed Martin a $264.7 million modification for additional operation and technical services in support of the government of Korea’s F-35 Lightning II program. The stealth F-35A is supposed to provide the Republic of Korea (ROK) with enhanced capability to protect safety and security. The ROK signed a Letter of Offer and Acceptance between the US and Korea for 40 F-35A Conventional Take Off and Landing variant jets with initial deliveries beginning in 2018. The first Korean F-35A made its debut in March 2018. It is expected that the aircraft will start to deliver to Chongju Air Base in spring 2019. Work under the modification will take place in Fort Worth, Texas and is scheduled to be completed in June 2020. Foreign Military Sales funds in the amount of $264,655,025 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year.

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