The Navy awarded Lockheed Martin [LMT] a $504 million order on Aug. 29 against an earlier basic ordering agreement to produce and deliver 12 Sikorsky MH-60R Seahawk Multi-Mission helicopters for Australia.
This comes nearly a year after the State Department approved a potential $985 million Foreign Military Sale (FMS) of 12 Seahawks to Australia (Defense Daily, Oct. 8, 2021).
At the time, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) said these helicopters would help improve Australia’s ability to perform anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare along with other missions like vertical replenishment, search and rescue, and communications relay.
The original FMS approval characterized assisting “one of our most important allies” in the Western Pacific as“vital” to the national interest.
The larger FMS value included 30 T-700-GE-401C engines and various weapons, sensors, spares, and other support equipment and services.
This latest order announcement said helicopter production work will be split among Lockheed Martin’s facilities in Owego, N.Y. (52 percent); Stratford, Conn. (40 percent); and Troy, Ala. (eight percent) and is expected to be finished by October 2026.
This is the latest in several international orders for MH-60R helicopters to U.S. allies and partners.
Previously, in March the State Department also approved an FMS of eight MH-60Rs to Spain at a value of $950 million, including engines, weapons and other systems (Defense Daily, March 15).
Last year, the Navy awarded Lockheed Martin a $447 million order for 12 MH-60Rs to South Korea (Defense Daily, April 13, 2021).
In 2020, the Navy awarded the company a $905 million contract for 24 Seahawks, including three for the U.S. Navy and 21 for India (Defense Daily, May 14, 2020).