Lockheed Martin to Provide Long-Range Anti-Ship Integration to Australian F/A-18 fighters

The Royal Australian Air Force has awarded Lockheed Martin a contract worth $49 Million to provide Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile integration and test effort for the formers F/A-18 E/F aircraft.

This order provides Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile integration and test effort for the Royal Australian Air Force F/A-18 E/F aircraft for the government of Australia, an official DoD release issued today said.

In February of 2020, the United States had approved Australia's request to purchase 200 AGM-158C Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles (LRASMs) for its F-18 Super Hornet fighters in a contact estimated to be worth $990 million. Australia intends to use the missiles on its F-18 aircraft to provide enhanced capabilities in defense of critical sea-lanes.

LRASM is a long range, precision-guided anti-ship missile leveraging the JASSM-ER heritage. Armed with a penetrator and blast fragmentation warhead, LRASM employs precision routing and guidance, day or night in all weather conditions. The missile employs a multi-modal sensor suite, weapon data link, and enhanced digital anti-jam Global Positioning System to detect and destroy specific targets within a group of numerous ships at sea.