Mercury Systems Inc. and Lockheed Martin announced they signed an agreement to collaborate on the development and manufacturing of new sensor processing technologies at Mercury’s Geneva, Switzerland facility for a wide variety of applications such as radar signal processing, multi-sensor data fusion, artificial intelligence and situational awareness. With a potential lifetime value of $40 million, the contract supports Lockheed Martin’s offset agreement with the Swiss government as part of Switzerland’s planned procurement of 36 F-35A Lightning II aircraft related to the Air 2030 program.
This cooperation between Lockheed Martin and Mercury will help provide Switzerland and other nations with some of the most advanced airborne defense systems in the world. The local industry in western Switzerland will also benefit from new opportunities and additional market access in the long term.
“We are very excited to strengthen our collaboration with Lockheed Martin,” said Paul Tanner, Mercury’s vice president of international growth operations. “We believe this project will be important to Switzerland and its economy, as it benefits Swiss national security through military aerospace and defense use. Further, it will continue to support our international growth as well as strengthen our product capability. It’s a great example of connecting cutting-edge commercial technology to defense, to address the A&D industry’s rapidly changing mission-critical needs.”
As part of this agreement, the companies will seek to bring the next generation of embedded processing technology to bear on safety-certifiable systems through the design, development and manufacturing of complex products, purpose-built for the aerospace and defense industry to meet sensor processing requirements for a variety of fixed-wing and rotary-wing airborne platforms. This investment will also provide the highest levels of performance and functionality while still maintaining the ability to reach the most critical levels of DO-254 and DO-178C safety certification.
“We look forward to continue strengthening our commitment to Swiss industry while extending our longstanding relationship with Mercury Systems,” said Patrick Nyfeler, managing director, Lockheed Martin Switzerland. “Together with Mercury, we intend to work closely with the Swiss government to select the best possible projects over the lifetime of this agreement, enhance Switzerland competitively in the global economy, creating jobs and enhancing local labor market skills well beyond the 10-year life of the contract.”