Lockheed Martin [LMT] was awarded a $2.3 million foreign military sales contract to continue concept and preliminary design work on the proposed Israeli Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS-I), the company said.
Lockheed Martin will work with the U.S. and Israeli navies to develop a technical specification and acquisition cost package for the LCS-I combat system.
As a result of briefings held in late 2004 on LCS, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) approached the U.S. Navy about conducting a platform study (Defense Daily, Sept. 14).
Lockheed Martin received an initial contract from the Israeli Navy in February 2006 to perform the feasibility study for a multi-mission LCS variant. The study was completed in April 2007. In August, IDF awarded the follow-on combat systems study to Lockheed Martin.
During the nine-month combat system configuration phase, Lockheed Martin will examine the combat system performance of LCS-I using two different radar options: the advanced radar under development by Israeli Aircraft Industries (IAI) and Lockheed Martin’s SPY-1F radar. The team will examine the performance of these two radar options using the COMBATSS-21 combat management system integrated with the Israeli Navy Command and Control (IC2) system and develop the technical architecture, high level specifications and estimated costs to integrate COMBATSS-21 with IC2 and multiple Israeli and U.S. sensor and weapon systems including the MK 41 Vertical Launch System (VLS), Typhoon gun and Barak missile. Lockheed Martin is currently partnered with Rafael Armament Systems, Elbit Systems [ESLT] and Ness on LCS-I, the company said.