{"id":711291,"date":"2026-06-02T22:41:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T22:41:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/711291\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T22:41:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T22:41:21","slug":"lockheed-martin-australia-accelerating-integrated-defence-capabilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/711291\/","title":{"rendered":"Lockheed Martin Australia accelerating integrated Defence capabilities"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"728x90\"<\/a>Lockheed Martin Australia is making an impact in systems-level R&D architecture through six R&D projects supported by the Defence Trailblazer. In collaboration with UNSW and Adelaide University researchers and delivered through Lockheed Martin Australia\u2019s Advanced Systems & Technologies R&D team, the projects are building advanced capabilities in hypersonics, space systems and artificial intelligence (AI) to inform their \u2018Southern Shield\u2019 anti-access, area-denial R&D strategy.<\/p>\n

Advanced Systems & Technologies (AST)<\/a>\u00a0is Lockheed Martin\u2019s first and most advanced multidisciplinary R&D facility located outside the United States. AST has established a coordinated, national R&D effort designed to rapidly demonstrate and de-risk advanced capabilities addressing Australia\u2019s defence needs as set out in Defence\u2019s National Defence Strategy.<\/p>\n

Southern Shield provides the mission-driven framework for coordinating R&D partnerships that allow advanced technologies to be rapidly integrated, demonstrated and evaluated at a system level. \u201cThe Southern Shield R&D strategy is designed to provide a core innovation system that can be applied to multiple programs required to achieve the vision of Australia\u2019s Future Integrated Force,\u201d said Dr Tony Lindsay, Director of AST at Lockheed Martin Australia.<\/p>\n

Six projects demonstrate Lockheed Martin Australia\u2019s commitment to stewardship for major operational capabilities through the execution of a coordinated, national R&D effort. The program is designed to rapidly deliver new sovereign technologies for Defence hypersonics, counter-hypersonics, and space-related capabilities.<\/p>\n

The R&D collaboration further strengthens the strategic partnership between Lockheed Martin Australia and Defence Trailblazer. Lockheed Martin Australia played a key role in the co-development of Defence Trailblazer\u2019s Combat Systems Engineering Micro-credentials<\/a>, delivered by Adelaide University and UNSW.<\/p>\n

Dr Sanjay Mazumdar, Executive Director at Defence Trailblazer, said of the partnership: \u201cLockheed Martin Australia has demonstrated ongoing dedication to Defence Trailblazer\u2019s R&D and workforce portfolios, investing in Australian technologies and supporting the development of a future defence-ready workforce. \u201cThis suite of collaborative projects will bring momentum for advanced hypersonics and space sensing technologies to Defence through an integrated systems approach. We are proud to support Lockheed Martin Australia in delivering advanced, transformative operational capabilities across all domains.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three of the projects are aligned with the strategic Defence priority of Hypersonics & Counter-Advanced Threats, by enhancing critical sovereign capabilities for vehicle design and machine learning capabilities.<\/p>\n

The projects are led by Professor Andrew Neely, chief investigator and Defence Trailblazer\u2019s UNSW Theme Lead for Defensive Hypersonics & Counter-measures, and Dr Scott Beinke, partner investigator at Lockheed Martin Australia.<\/p>\n

The \u2018sovereign rapid aerodynamic design tools\u2019 project investigated and developed methods for rapidly predicting the aerodynamic performance of hypersonic vehicle geometries using analytical, empirical, and computational methods.<\/p>\n

The \u2018aerothermal shape distortion of hypersonic vehicles\u2019 project extends existing collaborative research to model how aerothermal heating distorts the shape of hypersonic vehicles and investigates the impact of these effects on the performance and controllability of hypersonic systems.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy developing these methods for predicting the performance of hypersonic systems, the projects are providing tools and insights to improve early performance analysis and later detailed design of future hypersonic vehicles,\u201d said Dr Beinke.<\/p>\n

The analysis methods and R&D from these projects are being applied to the design of a flight system in the \u2018Common Front End (CFE) hypersonic flight testbed\u2019 project.<\/p>\n

The overall goal of the CFE project is to develop a high-speed flight testbed capability that can accommodate multiple experiments to enable greater access to flight testing opportunities. \u201cThis increased access is needed to accelerate the pace of hypersonic and countermeasures technology development for the benefit of both established and emerging defence industry players and therefore for Defence,\u201d said Professor Neely. \u201cUNSW Canberra has a strong relationship with Lockheed Martin Australia, and we welcome the opportunity to continue to work collaboratively to develop and test these systems, leveraging our world-class hypersonic capabilities and facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

As one aspect of the Southern Shield anti-access\/anti-denial (A2\/AD) technology development, Lockheed Martin Australia is developing and integrating sovereign advanced sensing and associated automated information workflows in the context of space-based hypersonic vehicle detection and tracking through two projects led by Professor Tat Jun (TJ) Chin, Defence Trailblazer\u2019s Defence Space Technologies Theme at Adelaide University.<\/p>\n

\u2018Space Domain Awareness on the Edge\u2019 will harness machine learning to improve the performance of optical sensors to monitor the night sky. A further objective is to raise the computational efficiency of the data processing for deployment on edge compute devices, as on-satellite space surveillance provides a complement to ground-based systems.<\/p>\n

To support Integrated Air and Missile Defence, the \u2018Space Layer Optimisation\u2019 project is increasing sovereign capability to rapidly design and assess satellite constellations, for the purposes of demonstrating the dynamic utilisation of space-based assets as part of the integrated, all-domain system.<\/p>\n

The project is led by Associate Professor Melrose Brown, Director for UNSW Canberra Space and Defence Trailblazer\u2019s UNSW Defence Space Technologies Theme Lead, and Luke Tracey, project lead at Lockheed Martin Australia. The project investigators are developing the methodology and software tools for design and performance assessments of satellite constellations, with the goal of optimising for integration with other all-domain tools required for end-to-end capability assessment.<\/p>\n

The outcomes are aligned with Defence\u2019s priority to invest in capabilities that strengthen space-based situational awareness and decision advantage, as outlined in the 2026 National Defence Strategy. \u201cUltimately, this will inform studies in the design and improvement of a Future Integrated Force A2\/AD capability,\u201d said Dr Lindsay.<\/p>\n

\"APDR_Bulletin_728X90\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For Editorial Inquiries Contact:
Editor Kym Bergmann at\u00a0[email\u00a0protected]<\/a>
For Advertising Inquiries Contact:
Group Sales Director Simon Hadfield at\u00a0[email\u00a0protected]<\/a><\/p>\n

\"leaderboard\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lockheed Martin Australia is making an impact in systems-level R&D architecture through six R&D projects supported by the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":711292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,345795,345796,44],"class_list":["post-711291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-defence-trailblazer","tag-lockheed-martin-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=711291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/711292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}