Lockheed to supply Australia with air battle management system

The Australian arm of defense company Lockheed Martin said it inked a contract to build the country’s Joint Air Battle Management System, considered foundational to the intercept of hostile missiles and aircraft.

The deal for JABMS, which will supply the command-and-control architecture for the country’s future air defense, is valued at AUD $500 million, or about U.S. $320 million, Lockheed Martin Australia said April 24. Lockheed last year bested rival Northrop Grumman to lead Australia’s closely related AIR6500-1 effort.

The endeavors have together been likened to the U.S. military’s vision of Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control, or CJADC2, in which information and firepower flow seamlessly across land, air, sea, space and cyber. Achieving that milestone requires armed services that can easily talk to each other and weapons and ordnance that can be coordinated across vast distances.

“AIR6500-1 will give Australia and our allies a greater level of connectivity and interoperability to counter current and future air and missile threats,” Warren McDonald, Lockheed’s chief executive for Australia and New Zealand , said in a statement.

“In a contested and fast-moving environment,” he added, “AIR6500-1 will give decision makers more time to consider and respond to a situation — time in these circumstances is a precious commodity.”

Work to overhaul Australia’s overhead defenses and digital connectivity is expected to generate hundreds of local jobs as well as open the door to a multibillion-dollar export market.

Technologies developed and deployed down under could be adopted worldwide. The U.S. considers Australia a preeminent partner in the Indo-Pacific — a region where billions of dollars are being poured to thwart Chinese ambitions. Washington sees Beijing as the No. 1 national security hazard.

“Together with the Department of Defence, we are harnessing the ingenuity found in Australian small-to-medium enterprises, industry primes and academia to build a transformational capability that will establish Australia’s Defence Force as one of the most highly advanced in the world,” Erika Marshall, a Lockheed vice president, said in a statement.

Lockheed is the world’s largest defense contractor when ranked by defense-related revenue. The company made $63.3 billion in defense revenue 2022 and $64.4 billion in 2021, according to Defense News Top 100 analysis.

Colin Demarest was a reporter at C4ISRNET, where he covered military networks, cyber and IT. Colin had previously covered the Department of Energy and its National Nuclear Security Administration — namely Cold War cleanup and nuclear weapons development — for a daily newspaper in South Carolina. Colin is also an award-winning photographer.

澳大利亚国防公司洛克希德·马丁表示，该公司已签署合同，为澳大利亚建造联合空中作战管理系统，该系统被认为是拦截敌方导弹和飞机的基础。

洛克希德·马丁澳大利亚公司4月24日表示，JABMS系统合同价值5亿澳元，约合3.2亿美元，该系统将为澳大利亚未来的防空系统提供指挥控制架构。去年，洛克希德击败了竞争对手诺斯罗普·格鲁曼公司，赢得了澳大利亚密切相关的AIR6500-1项目的主导权。

这些努力共同体现了美国军方提出的“联合全域指挥与控制”（CJADC2）愿景，即信息和火力能够在陆地、空中、海洋、太空和网络空间无缝流动。实现这一目标需要各军种之间能够轻松沟通，以及武器弹药能够在广阔的距离内进行协调。

洛克希德公司澳大利亚和新西兰首席执行官沃伦·麦克唐纳在一份声明中表示：“AIR6500-1 将为澳大利亚及其盟友提供更高水平的连接性和互操作性，以应对当前和未来的空中和导弹威胁。”

他补充说：“在竞争激烈、瞬息万变的环境中，AIR6500-1 将为决策者提供更多时间来考虑和应对情况——在这样的情况下，时间是宝贵的资源。”

澳大利亚高空防御系统和数字连接改造工程预计将创造数百个本地就业岗位，并打开价值数十亿美元的出口市场大门。

澳大利亚研发和应用的技术有望在全球范围内推广。美国视澳大利亚为印太地区最重要的合作伙伴——该地区正投入数十亿美元以遏制中国的野心。华盛顿将北京视为头号国家安全威胁。

洛克希德公司副总裁埃里卡·马歇尔在一份声明中表示：“我们正与国防部一起，利用澳大利亚中小企业、行业巨头和学术界的创造力，打造一种变革性的能力，使澳大利亚国防军成为世界上最先进的国防军之一。”

按国防相关收入排名，洛克希德·马丁是全球最大的国防承包商。据《防务新闻》百强企业分析显示，该公司2022年国防收入为633亿美元，2021年为644亿美元。

科林·德马雷斯特曾是C4ISRNET的记者，负责报道军事网络、网络安全和信息技术方面的新闻。此前，他曾为南卡罗来纳州的一家日报报道美国能源部及其下属的国家核安全管理局，主要关注冷战后的清理工作和核武器研发。科林还是一位屡获殊荣的摄影师。