Lockheed Martin awards more Future Submarine Combat System R&D contracts

Lockheed Martin Australia has announced the award of seven new contracts to Australian industry and academic organisations for a combined value of $525,000 to author White Papers on the development of novel and emerging advanced technologies in support of Australia’s Attack Class Submarine combat system.

This is the third cycle of R&D funded under the Future Submarine Combat System Integrator Program, bringing the total awarded to date to over A$2m across 19 unique Australian industry and research organisations.

The R&D Program is based on an ongoing nine-month cyclic process funded by the Commonwealth and administered under the Lockheed Martin Australia contract. Each R&D Cycle consists of proposals from industry and academia against a set of published R&D topics. After a competitive review and assessment, selected responses are awarded a contract to fund development of a White Paper. Upon completion of the White Papers, further contracts may be awarded to selected respondents for Ongoing Capability Research.

Two earlier R&D cycles (Cycle 1 and Cycle 2) are currently underway with those White Papers currently being assessed for longer term Ongoing Capability Research funding.

A total of 27 responses were received across the six Cycle 3 R&D topics, with seven successful organisations awarded contracts of A$75,000 each:

• Investigate the feasibility of small form-factor, multi-function, Electronically Steered Array (ESA) for Electronic Support (ES) and Communications in submarine environment
  • Solinnov (SA)
  • Curtin University (WA)
• Instantaneous 360 video – Miniturisation of optical bench
  • No contracts were awarded under this topic for Cycle 3
• Methods for improving cyber resilience of container orchestration environments
  • IPACS (SA)
  • Saab (SA)
• Integration of SATCOM bearers in a single antenna payload
  • EM Solutions (QLD)
• Console design in-line with, and beyond state-of-the-art currently developed for ships
  • University of South Australia (SA)
• Innovative ways to manage cables
  • University of Newcastle (NSW)

The Attack Class Combat System Integration R&D Program features an ongoing process to build Australian combat system technologies that have been scaled to meet the long-term capability needs of the Australian Submarine Force. The Program includes a defined approach for the transition of successful R&D outcomes into the evolving Attack Class combat system baseline configurations.