Defense Industry

The Navy awarded Pratt & Whitney a not-to-exceed $2.88 billion modification to produce 141 F135 propulsion systems for F-35 Lot 18. The award covers engines for the Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy, along with partner nations and foreign military sales customers. Work runs through February 2028 and uses a mix of fixed-price and incentive fee lines set under an undefinitized change to an existing contract. Defense officials confirm the contracting authority rests with Naval Air Systems Command in Patuxent River.

Sweden and Thailand have signed a government-to-government contract for four Saab Gripen E/F fighters worth about SEK 5.3 billion (roughly $550-560 millions). The package covers three single-seat Gripen E and one twin seat Gripen F, with equipment, support, and training included. Deliveries will run from 2025 through 2030. Defense officials confirm the agreement followed an official Thai visit to Stockholm on August 25, with the signing witnessed by senior ministers from both countries. 

Poland has secured a new armored-vehicle deal worth roughly $6.7 billion, anchored by a second contract with Hyundai Rotem for 180 K2 tanks. The agreement, signed in Gliwice with Polish and South Korean officials in attendance, is valued at about $6.5 billion. Deliveries begin in 2026 and will stretch well into the 2030s, with part of the K2PL production taking place inside Poland.

The U.S. Army approved a 10-year enterprise agreement with Palantir that carries a ceiling of $10 billion and folds 75 seperate arrangements into one contract vehicle. Officials said this instrument replaces scattered, duplicative buys with a single catalog that lists products and services with clear unit prices and quantities. Orders will be placed through task orders under the umbrella agreement. The Army noted the ceiling is not a spending commitment and programs will purchase only what they fund.

Türkiye has concluded two linked naval contracts with the state-owned shipbuilder ASFAT: one for a TF-2000 air-defense destroyer and another for four offshore patrol vessels. The agreements were signed at IDEF 2025 in Istanbul by ASFAT CEO Mustafa İlbaş and Admiral Ercüment Tatlıoğlu, Commander of the Turkish Naval Forces. According to defense officials, the destroyer is scheduled to launch in 2028 and enter service in 2030, while the patrol vessels will be delivered within thirty-six months of contract award. Financial terms were not dislcosed.

Boris Pistorius and Sébastien Lecornu closed their latest meeting in Osnabrück with a single-line instruction for staff: settle the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) work-share fight by the end of December. Pistorius called the deadline “non-negotiable”. Lecornu warned that further delays would disrupt air force planning. Their comments followed weeks of tension between governments and industry that had raised doubts about Europe’s most ambitious combat-air programme.