BAE Systems, Inc. has won a contract with Lockheed Martin to provide additional electronic warfare (EW) systems, retrofit kits, and spares for the F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter aircraft.
The contract builds on BAE’s on-time delivery of more than 800 AN/ASQ-239 EW/countermeasure systems to date, providing F-35 jets with critical situational awareness and survivability capabilities.
This additional equipment will be delivered under a Lot 16 award. The award comes as BAE delivers Lot 14 systems and executes material orders for Lot 15.
The company is currently producing 18 shipsets a month as it ramps production to more than 20 shipsets a month in 2022 to match F-35 aircraft Low Rate Initial Production.
“We’ve delivered cutting-edge electronic warfare systems for every F-35 fighter,” said Deb Norton, vice president of F-35 Solutions at BAE Systems.
“Our team is focused on manufacturing excellence and execution, providing agile, adaptable systems to outpace the current and future threat.”
The AN/ASQ-239 EW system provides advanced offensive and defensive capabilities that enable the F-35 to engage complex and highly capable threats. The innovative system is designed for performance, manufacturability, sustainability, and future upgradability.
BAE has reduced the cost of the F-35 EW system by 77% since it was first produced and achieved all affordability targets since the inception of the program. The company’s expertise in performance-based logistics has yielded a 60% improvement in F-35 EW system availability.
The AN/ASQ-239 system is manufactured at the BAE Systems state-of-the-art EW production facility in Nashua, NH.
