SANTIAGO – Lockheed Martin Canada will provide and install new combat management systems for three of the Chilean Navy’s frigates.
The majority of the work will be done at Lockheed Martin Canada’s facilities in Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax. The combat management systems and other equipment will be installed on Chile’s Type 23 frigates.
Lockheed Martin Canada is not releasing details about the value of the contract but the Citizen citing its sources reported that the deal is in the range of a similar project announced by the firm in 2014 for New Zealand’s Navy. That project was valued at $180 million.
Lockheed Martin’s Combat Management System 330 was chosen by Chile after a world-wide competition. A similar system is in use on the Royal Canadian Navy’s Halifax-class frigates.
“We are thrilled with this award and look forward to working with the Chilean Navy and ASMAR, the Chilean shipyard, as well as forging long term relationships with Chilean partners to deliver new capability to the Armada de Chile,” Rosemary Chapdelaine, vice president for Lockheed Martin Canada Rotary and Mission Systems, said in a statement yesterday.
Lockheed Martin Canada will be promoting some of the subsystems for the Chilean program at its booth at the CANSEC defense trade show in Ottawa next week.
Work has already started in Canada on the systems. The work to be done eventually in Chile will focus on integrating the systems on the ships and testing them. Lockheed Martin did not release details on when the installation of the systems will be done or when the Chilean project would be finished.
In 2014, Lockheed Martin Canada signed a contract to conduct similar modernization work on two of the Royal New Zealand Navy’s frigates. Installation of those systems is expected to take place sometime later this year or early next year in Victoria, B.C.
