The U.S. Navy has selected Lockheed Martin’s plant in suburban Syracuse to develop a new generation of submarine-hunting sonars in a contract worth up to $297 million over the next seven years, according to Pentagon officials.
The initial contract award under the deal is for $24.6 million, allowing Lockheed Martin to develop the first production unit of the TB-37X multi-function towed array system.
If the Navy follows through with options for full production at maximum quantities, the contract would be worth $297,015,157, according to contract details supplied by the Pentagon.
Lockheed Martin’s plant at Electronic Park in Salina sold previous versions of the TB-37 sonars to the U.S. Navy and Japan under a contract worth up to $199 million. That contact was due to expire in September.
The sonar systems allow surface ships to hunt and attack enemy submarines at various depths in the ocean.
The Navy has been equipping its Zumwalt and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, and Ticonderoga-class cruisers, with the systems that are towed behind the ships.
Lockheed Martin officials in Salina had no immediate comment Monday when asked if the contract will lead to new jobs at the Electronics Park campus. The company employs about 1,700 people in Salina and is hiring to fill more than 100 job openings.
The new jobs are for entry-level and experienced professionals in systems engineering, electrical engineering, software engineering, integration and testing, and manufacturing.
About 53% of the work on the sonar contract will performed at the Salina plant, according to the contract. Additional work will be completed in Millersville, Md. (44%) and Marion, Mass. (1%), Cleveland (1%) and Albuquerque (1%).
The new contract comes two months after Lockheed Martin’s Salina plant landed a $600 million share of a $3.2 billion Navy contract to provide radars for the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft, early-warning surveillance planes based on aircrafts carriers.
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