Boeing awarded $1.5B for Hornet, Growler upgrades

June 15 (UPI) -- Boeing has been awarded a contract by the Department of Defense for system configuration sets and services to support upgrades to several F/A-18 variants for the U.S. Navy and foreign customers.

The contract, from the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division and valued at more than $1.5 billion, is an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract for life cycle upgrades to the F/A-18A/B, C/D, E/F and EA-18G aircraft of the Navy and foreign military sales customers.

The deliverables and services Boeing will provide include FMS unique system configuration sets, system improvement and demonstration products, laboratory upgrades, studies and analysis, system configuration sets, software integration laboratory and on-site engineering services, according to the Pentagon.

Work on the contract will mostly be conducted in St. Louis, with some taking place in China Lake, Calif., and is expected to be completed by June 2023.

The contract is being funded mostly by the Navy, which is supplying $1.18 billion, and the remaining $333 million will come from foreign customers.

More than $7.5 million has been obligated to Boeing at the time of the award from the Navy's fiscal 2018 working capital funds and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year, the Pentagon said.