The U.S. Air Force has decided to continue working with a vendor responsible for the development of an electronic warfare solution designed for the F-16 aircraft.
On Thursday, the Department of Defense announced that it had awarded Lockheed Martin Aeronautics a fixed-price incentive, (firm-target) modification to an existing contract expanding the current long-lead materials contract to include production of the F-16 Viper Shield electronic warfare suite.
By exercising the option, the collaboration between the service branch and Lockheed Martin will continue until June 30, 2028. The deal involves foreign military sales to Bahrain, Bulgaria, Morocco, the Slovak Republic and Taiwan. The Pentagon will obligate $152.7 million in Foreign Military Sales funds at the time of the award.
The Viper Shield is Lockheed Martin’s next-generation EW system that comes with the latest technologies for countermeasure operations. Among its features are software-defined technology components that provide digital radar threat warning and digital countermeasure capabilities.
Lockheed Martin completed the third interoperability test of the EW solution in December. The milestone indicates that the defense contractor is still on track to start production by the fourth quarter of 2025.