Royal Australian Air Force Selects Lockheed Martin Australia For Next Phase Of Program To Develop 21ST Century Joint Air Battle Management System

5 August 2021

Lockheed Martin Australia, welcomed today’s announcement by the Minister for Defence, The Hon Peter Dutton MP, and the Minister for Defence Industry, The Hon Melissa Price MP, on the Government’s official down selection of Lockheed Martin Australia, as one of the two primes selected, to participate in the Royal Australian Air Force’s AIR6500 Phase 1 Project (AIR6500-1): Competitive Evaluation Process Stage 2 (CEPS2).

AIR6500-1 will provide the Australian Defence Force (ADF) with a Joint Air Battle Management System that will form the architecture at the core of the ADF’s future Integrated Air and Missile Defence (IAMD) capability. This will provide greater situational awareness and defence against increasingly advanced air and missile threats, as well as give the ADF increased levels of interoperability with coalition partners.

Joe North, Chief Executive Lockheed Martin Australia and New Zealand said, “Today’s announcement marks the next step in AIR6500-1 to work in partnership with the Australian Defence Force and industry partners to support the Royal Australian Air Force’s vision to transform the Air Force into a next-gen-enabled force through delivering a sovereign highly advanced Joint Air Battle Management System to protect Australia’s security.”

“Since 2016, we have been highly committed to supporting the AIR6500-1 project. Our Lockheed Martin Australia AIR6500-1 team has steadily grown over this time to over 80 Australians in Adelaide, Canberra and Williamtown.”

“Critical to that effort has been our focus on proactively engaging and establishing important partnerships with Australian industry to identify and invest in ‘best of breed’ local capabilities to deliver a truly sovereign capability solution for Australia,” said Mr. North.

Lockheed Martin Australia will continue partnering with industry, academia and government to develop, integrate, build, and sustain future technologies that can be integrated into an open architecture framework to support AIR6500-1. This approach will ensure innovative small to medium Australian high-tech businesses remain at the core of shaping Australia’s future defence capabilities.

“We look forward to collaborating with Australian industry and the Royal Australian Air Force to progress the AIR6500-1 solution as part of the CEPS2. We would like to congratulate Northrop Grumman for also being down selected for the CEPS2,” said Mr. North.

Steve Froelich, Lockheed Martin Australia AIR6500 Program Executive reflected that today’s AIR6500-1 announcement will set new standards for Joint All Domain Operations. He said “AIR6500-1 will make it possible to combine Australia’s integrated battlespace with the U.S and allied forces, ensuring greater situational awareness and increased interoperability for our military forces to combat evolving threats across the region.”

Lockheed Martin Australia actively supports an Australian sovereign defence capability which sees a highly skilled workforce of over 1,200 across Australia who partner with defence and industry to deliver, integrate and sustain advanced technology solutions. In turn, our programs and projects directly support over 6,000 Australian jobs in the advanced manufacturing and high technology defence industry sector.