Lockheed Martin awarded $25M contract to produce Launch Sequencer Mark 5.

Lockheed Martin Corp. Rotary and Mission Systems, Baltimore, Maryland, is awarded a $25,449,876 firm-fixed-price contract for Launch Sequencer (LSEQ) Mark (MK) 5 Mod production in support of the Vertical Launch System (VLS).

A RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile launched from the Mk-41 VLS aboard a Royal Norwegian Navy Fridtjof Nansen class Frigate (Picture source: Marthe Brendefur/Norwegian Armed Forces)

The LSEQs are used in support of the VLS, which provides area and self-defense, anti-air warfare capabilities, counter-air and land-attack cruise missile defense and surface and subsurface warfare capabilities.

This contract involves Foreign Military Sales (FMS) to South Korea and Finland. Work will be performed in Oldsmar, Florida, and is expected to be completed by March 2021. This contract will provide for the manufacture, assembly, test and delivery of VLS LSEQ MK 5 Mod 2.

If all options are exercised, work will continue through March 2022. Fiscal 2017 and 2018 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy); fiscal 2020 procurement defense wide (Navy); and fiscal 2020 FMS funding in the amount of $25,449,876 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.

A vertical launching system (VLS) is an advanced system for holding and firing missiles on mobile naval platforms, such as surface ships and submarines. Each vertical launch system consists of a number of cells, which can hold one or more missiles ready for firing.

A VLS allows surface combatants to have a greater number of weapons ready for firing at any given time compared to older launching systems such as the Mark 13 single-arm and Mark 26 twin-arm launchers, which were fed from behind by a magazine below the main deck. In addition to greater firepower, VLS is much more damage tolerant and reliable than the previous systems and has a lower radar cross-section (RCS).