Lockheed Martin was awarded USD49 million by the US Department of Defence (DoD) on December 27 to support its work on an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter variant "tailored" for an undisclosed Foreign Military Sale (FMS) customer. The work associated with this award is expected to last until December 2026.
A contract has been awarded to Lockheed Martin to design and develop a variant of its F-35 Lightning II JSF to meet the needs of an unnamed foreign customer.
Though no information about the new variant or the end-user has been released, it is almost certain that it does not refer to a new version of the JSF beyond the existing CTOL F-35A, STOVL F-35B, or carrier variant (CV) F-35C. Rather, the low value and short timeline suggest that a previously awarded design and development contract will be continued.
DOD’s announcement reads that Lockheed Martin Corp. was awarded a $49,059,494 cost-plus-incentive-fee contract to provide engineering and other related activities to support the design and development of a Joint Strike Fighter aircraft variant tailored for an unnamed Foreign Military Sales (FMS) customer, according to the announcement.
A total of $49,059,494 in FMS funds will be obligated at the time of award, with none of them expiring at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command in Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.
