Lockheed Martin is working towards meeting foreign interest for road-mobile Mark 41 VLS systems. To make export of the various systems more likely, the leading defense company is ready to integrate non-US missiles such as those produced by Europe’s MBDA or Israel’s IAI.
Allied partners to the United States are expressing significant interest in the expeditionary capabilities currently being delivered by Lockheed Martin through their family of road mobile Mark 41 VLS systems, with the company working towards the integration of new, foreign missiles to various expeditionary systems to meet international interest for air defense requirements.
Naval News received the news in an interview with Edward Dobeck, Lockheed Martin’s Program Director for Launching Systems, discussing the background of Lockheed Martin’s expeditionary launcher portfolio.
Lockheed Martin’s expeditionary family includes the U.S. Army’s Medium Range Capability (MRC; formerly known as Typhon), the U.S. Navy’s Mark 70 Payload Delivery System (PDS), and the U.S. Marine Corps’ Long Range Fires Launcher (LRFL). All three systems are manufactured and assembled at Lockheed Martin’s Moorestown, New Jersey facility.
The systems share launcher equipment and can all be reloaded horizontally, eliminating the need for cranes and allowing for rapid reloading with a specialized logistics vehicle that uses rails to load and unload missile canisters from the launchers.
“You’re able to slide [the missiles] in horizontally without a crane like you would with Mark 41.”
Ed Dobeck, Lockheed Martin Program Director for Launching Systems
According to Dobeck, all expeditionary systems developed by Lockheed Martin are capable of firing any missile from the Mark 41 VLS family. That includes Lockheed Martin’s PAC-3 MSE which performed its first flight test from a Mark 70 PDS container in May 2024.
“Any of our expeditionary products enable all missiles [from the Mark 41 family] to be fired.”
Ed Dobeck, Lockheed Martin Program Director for Launching Systems
For the U.S. Army, interest is focused on Tomahawk cruise missiles and the Standard Missile 6 (SM-6). For the U.S. Marine Corps, interest is primarily in Tomahawk cruise missiles from their single-cell LRFL vehicles. For the U.S. Navy, the entire Aegis family of missiles is being integrated to support lethality enhancements for Littoral Combat Ships.
With foreign interest on the rise, foreign missiles from allied partners are being integrated as an effort to develop expeditionary air defense systems. Lockheed Martin could not disclose the interested nations but confirmed there were interested partners in Asia and Europe. According to Dobeck, Lockheed Martin’s expeditionary launchers could serve as air defense systems for interested customers. The concept has been proven in the case of the Mark 70 PDS which recently launched an SM-3 this summer.
According to Lockheed Martin, future options for the Mark 41 family of surface-to-air missiles include MBDA’s Common Anti Air Modular Missile (CAMM), the ASTER family of Franco-Italian surface-to-air missiles, and Indian-Israeli Barak surface-to-air missile. Future surface-to-surface missiles include the American Long Range Anti-ship Missile (LRASM) and MBDA’s Future Cruise/Anti-Ship Weapon (FC/ASW). Naval News reached out to MBDA for comments, but did not receive a response as of April 8.
Potential recipients of expeditionary launcher exports to European countries remains unknown, but a likely customer in Asia is the Philippines. Manila expressed interest in procuring the MRC system from the United States to project power into the West Philippine Sea and greater West Pacific, countering an increasingly aggressive PLA and CCG as tensions continue to build over China’s claims to Filipino territory.
MRC is being deployed to the Philippines this year following its first successful deployment to the Philippines in April 2024, a move that sparked significant criticism from China. A platoon from a Philippine Army artillery regiment received “familiarization and orientation” training on the system in February according to a Philippine Army press conference.
According to Dobeck, Lockheed Martin expects a major announcement regarding its portfolio of expeditionary launchers later this year. The company has already delivered two U.S. Army MRC batteries, eight U.S. Marine Corps LRFL launchers, and a “significant number” of U.S. Navy PDS launchers.
