Lockheed Martin to provide 29 ODIN maintenance and software kits to help F-35 crews keep combat jets flying
PATUXENT RIVER NAS, Md. – Aviation logistics experts at Lockheed Martin Corp. will build 29 Operational Data Integrated Network (ODIN) base kits to speed upgrades, maintenance, and sustainment of U.S. F-35 combat jets under terms of an order announced last week worth as much as $40.9 million.
Officials of the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command are asking the Lockheed Martin Aeronautics segment in Fort worth, Texas, to build the 29 ODIN base kits, including software installation and integration, for the F-35 in support of the U.S. Navy, Air Force and allies.
ODIN will be a cloud-native computer logistics sustainment system with a new integrated data environment and user applications that will improve F-35 sustainment and readiness.
The order also asks Lockheed Martin to perform on-aircraft tests on Multi-Path Support Equipment (MPSE) candidates to demonstrate MPSE functionality for aircraft support requirements.
ODIN is being designed to decrease F-35 administrator and maintainer workload, increase mission capability all F-35 variants, and enable engineers to develop and deploy software updates rapidly.
ODIN will combine Lockheed Martin computer and networking hardware with software coded by the government to enable military experts to retain control over the system.
ODIN is set to supersede Lockheed Martin’s troubled Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS) by December 2022 when all F-35 units should have the new ODIN computers and software.
F-35 pilots, maintainers, and support personnel have been using ALIS to track and order spare parts, conduct repairs, support mission planning and training, and store technical data. Still, ALIS was designed with the jet in the early 2000s, and some of its technology has become outdated; today it creates a system that is slow and difficult to use.
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The new ODIN hardware is much smaller than the servers and the computers that support ALIS. Existing ALIS servers can weigh more than 800 pounds require a six-foot rack of electronics and backup power modules, which makes it difficult to deploy ALIS in austere environments near the front lines.
ODIN hardware, on the other hand, has two transportable cases about the size of two pieces of carry-on luggage that collectively weigh about 140 pounds. ALIS software also runs about twice as fast on the ODIN computers than it did on the old hardware.
The F-35 is the first tactical aircraft with sustainment tools designed together with the aircraft to help control the costs of maintaining a fleet of 5th generation jet fighters.
On this order Lockheed Martin will do the work in Orlando, Fla., and Fort Worth, Texas, and should be finished by July 2026. For more information contact Lockheed Martin Aeronautics online at www.lockheedmartin.com, or Naval Air Systems Command at www.navair.navy.mil.
John Keller | Editor-in-Chief
John Keller is the Editor-in-Chief, Military & Aerospace Electronics Magazine--provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronics and optoelectronic technologies in military, space and commercial aviation applications. John has been a member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since 1989 and chief editor since 1995.
