The tri-service and international F-35 fighter by Lockheed Martin [LMT] entered service in 2015, and, nearly nine years later, has achieved full-rate production, DoD said on March 12.
“Earlier today, the Milestone Decision Authority, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, Dr. William A. LaPlante, approved the Milestone C/Full Rate Production (MSC/FRP) of the F-35 Lightning II aircraft with the signing of an Acquisition Decision Memorandum (ADM) after a [March 7] meeting with the Defense Acquisition Board (DAB),” the Pentagon said.
Lockheed Martin has delivered more than 990 F-35s so far, according to DoD.
In January, Lockheed Martin CEO Jim Taiclet said that the company’s delivery of the Technology Refresh-3 (TR-3) software backbone for the F-35’s Block 4 weapons and sensor upgrades will likely slip from June to the third quarter (Defense Daily, Jan. 23).
The Pentagon approved MSC/FRP “after considering the results from the F-35 Combined Initial Operational Test and Evaluation and Live Fire Test and Evaluation Report, System Development and Demonstration exit criteria, statutory/regulatory documentation compliance, future production strategy, and draft acquisition program baseline details,” DoD said. “Proceeding to MSC/FRP requires control of the manufacturing process, acceptable performance and reliability, and the establishment of adequate sustainment and support systems.”
The Pentagon said that the F-35 “is now well positioned to efficiently produce and deliver the next generation of aircraft to meet the evolving needs of our services, partners, and FMS [foreign military sales] customers.”
Last September, the F-35 Joint Program Office said that the F-35 had completed the final 64 runs of Joint Simulation Environment (JSE) testing–known as “Runs for Score”–needed for a full-rate production decision (Defense Daily, Sept. 29, 2023).
The requirement was for the F-35 to go up against modern, fielded threats in those 64 JSE runs, which were to finish in September 2020.
The F-35 program established JSE for F-35 in 2016 after the program decided to take over work on the simulation environment from Lockheed Martin, but delays in JSE testing pushed back the F-35 full-rate production decision.