IN Brief:
- The Navy placed a fully funded $114,629,966 order for redesign of the F-35 GPS Electronic Unit and NAV100 Inertial Navigation System.
- Lockheed Martin must carry out engineering, integration, qualification and testing to address obsolete components.
- The work is scheduled through January 2030 and does not announce a new navigation capability.
Lockheed Martin Aeronautics has received a $114.63 million US Navy order to redesign two navigation electronics units aboard the F-35 Lightning II as older components become harder to obtain. Awarded by Naval Air Systems Command on 23 October, the work covers the GPS Electronic Unit and the NAV100 Inertial Navigation System, with redesign, integration and qualification scheduled through January 2030. The Navy’s stated objective is to preserve existing navigation functions and aircraft compatibility while replacing components affected by dwindling manufacturing sources.
The affected equipment comprises the Global Positioning System Electronic Unit and the NAV100 Inertial Navigation System. Both are elements of the aircraft’s navigation architecture, but they perform different functions. Satellite positioning supplies externally referenced location and timing data, while an inertial system estimates changes in movement using onboard measurements. Combining the information allows an aircraft to maintain navigation estimates across changing operating conditions, although inertial estimates accumulate error without reliable external corrections.
The order, numbered N0001927F1037 under an existing basic ordering agreement, funds nonrecurring engineering, integration, qualification and testing. An avionics design can remain effective for many years after an individual microelectronic part has been discontinued or its manufacturing process changed. Once a supplier stops producing a device, an aircraft manufacturer must either sustain access to suitably qualified inventory or redesign the affected assembly around components that can still be procured and supported. The Navy is pursuing the second approach for these two F-35 units.
That substitution requires the new circuitry to do more than fit the available space. Different components can alter power consumption, thermal behaviour, signal timing and electromagnetic compatibility, while board changes may also affect embedded software and production test procedures. Engineers must then show that the redesigned units continue to exchange the correct data with other aircraft systems and meet their specified environmental requirements. The notice does not claim improved accuracy, stronger resistance to interference or any other additional navigation mode as an outcome of this order.
The award allocates 70.1% of the work to El Segundo, California, 27.5% to Fort Worth, Texas, and 2.4% to Clearwater, Florida. Those shares identify where the contract says performance will occur; they do not identify all suppliers or specify which plant will ultimately manufacture every redesigned item. The named contracting activity is Naval Air Systems Command at Patuxent River, Maryland, and the order was placed without competitive procurement under the existing arrangement.
The full $114,629,966 will be obligated at award, divided between $46,411,323 in fiscal 2026 Air Force aircraft procurement funds, $46,411,322 from the Navy’s corresponding account and $21,807,321 contributed by F-35 cooperative programme partners. These sums reconcile to the stated contract total and fund engineering work, rather than a separate order for aircraft. With the programme serving three US services and international customers, retaining compatibility across established aircraft baselines is a material consideration for the redesign.
Maintaining a common configuration across aircraft variants and customers raises further qualification considerations. The F-35 family serves US Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps requirements as well as those of international partners. An electronics substitution may have to be evaluated against shared platform interfaces and the production baselines used by those fleets. The contract does not disclose the number of aircraft that will eventually receive redesigned hardware, a modification schedule for aircraft already in service or the price of individual replacement units.
The redesigned navigation units will require integration testing after their internal electronics change. Changing internal devices can affect data timing, processing errors, monitoring functions and electrical behaviour at interfaces shared with other avionics. Engineers therefore need evidence from tests of the separate units and their integration into the aircraft’s navigation architecture. The published contract identifies the equipment being redesigned but does not state which specific electronic parts have reached the end of their manufacturing lives, nor does it describe the acceptance procedures the Navy will require for each revised configuration.
Production and fleet support create different demands on the resulting configuration. Newly built aircraft need a repeatable flow of accepted hardware, while existing aircraft may require compatible replacement units when equipment fails or reaches an overhaul point. Both cases depend on configuration records, parts traceability and test arrangements capable of identifying faults after the redesign. The Navy has disclosed neither a retrofit schedule for operational aircraft nor the eventual unit quantities, so its engineering expenditure cannot be converted into an assumed number of replacement navigation units.
Lockheed’s work is expected to finish in January 2030, with the published performance split across El Segundo, California, Fort Worth, Texas, and Clearwater, Florida. The award establishes a funded path to redesign and qualify the GPS Electronic Unit and NAV100 around supportable electronics. Decisions on aircraft installation, replacement quantities and the final production configuration will depend on subsequent programme activity that has not yet been announced.
