Lockheed Martin's relationship with Australia extends back to the 1950s when the Royal Australian Air Force became the first international customer for the C-130 Hercules transport aircraft. Maintaining that early tradition the RAAF became the launch customer for the C-130J, the most advanced version of the famous Hercules aircraft, receiving the first of their order of 12 aircraft in September 1999. In July 2002 the Australian Government announced that it had selected the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II for its New Combat Capability replacement aircraft and had agreed to participate in the System Demonstration and Development (SDD) phase of the aircraft over the following decade. During that time 22 aircraft will be built – 15 aircraft in its three configurations for flight testing, six for non-flight testing and one to test the aircraft’s radar signature. Some 20 Australian defence and aerospace companies have won a range of contracts to design, develop and build parts and systems under the SDD phase of the F-35 program, placing them in line for more lucrative contracts when the aircraft enters the Low Rate Initial Production phase. Lockheed Martin has also been selected to provide the Aegis Combat System for the upcoming Air Warfare Destroyer program for the Royal Australian Navy. This is a 20-year plus program which will deliver to Australia the world's foremost area defence capabilities. The Corporation is also bidding for the combat systems for three proposed amphibious landing ships for the Royal Australian Navy.
In September 2006, Lockheed Martin won the Air 5418 contest for the Follow On Standoff Weapon for the Royal Australian Air Force with its JASSM stealthy air-to-surface missile. Deliveries are proposed for 2009 and they will be initially fitted to the Royal Australian Air Force’s F/A-18 fighters. The JASSM missile may later be employed on the F-35 Lightning II. Lockheed Martin's partnership with Australian industry and government includes defence, civil and commercial sectors. As a result, Lockheed Martin and its Australian partners have created alliances that address the requirements of its customers in all three sectors. As an example, In 1997 Lockheed Martin and Tenix Group formed a joint venture, RLM Holdings, primarily to deliver the JORN Over-the-Horizon Radar program. In 2008 Lockheed Martin bought Tenix’s 50% share of the company and formed a 100% owned subsidiary, Lockheed Martin Australia Electronic Systems Pty Ltd (LMAES). LMAES’s key capabilities include system integration, system engineering, complex software development and sustainment. Following successful delivery of the JORN system in 2003 LMAES continues to pursue business in both Defence (including classified programs) and non-Defence sectors and in Over-the-Horizon Radar technology. JORN is a billion-dollar wide-area surveillance over-the-horizon radar network which provides the means to detect ships and aircraft up to 3,000 kilometers off the Australian coast. Since the delivery of JORN, the customer has awarded significant follow-on work to LMAES for on-going maintenance and upgrades to the JORN system. This work is contracted to continue for the next 15 years. Since June 2006, LMAES has been Lockheed Martin MS2’s in-country support contractor for the TPS-77 TADRS program providing engineering and maintenance services.
In the area of municipal services, RLM has been at the forefront of State government outsourcing programs and provided a range of services including a successful contract for the State of Victoria's tax reporting system and traffic infringement processing systems. At the Federal level, Lockheed Martin Postal Systems was awarded a contract by Australia Post, the national postal service, which had embarked on one of the most ambitious system upgrades in the world. This was a major capital project under which Australia Post's Network Renewal Program called for the upgrading of all aspects of its letters and flats mail processing systems and for significant automation improvements. In the late 1990s Lockheed Martin was awarded a contract by Australia Post to provide the MultiLine Optical Character Reader/Video Coding System (MLOCR/VCS) which automatically reads addresses, assigns the respective address code and sorts the mail pieces to the designated delivery points. Further contracts followed, including Tray Management Systems for two new processing centres. In 1998, Lockheed Martin selected a site in northern New South Wales in the New England region near Armidale, for a new commercial communications satellite tracking station. Lockheed Martin signed a lease with the Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia's federal government research organisation, for the tracking station site. The tracking station was officially opened and came into full service in 1999. Since then additional satellite tracking dishes have been installed at the station. Lockheed Martin is also working with the Australian Rail Track Corporation to implement a nation-wide Train Management System. This system is based on Lockheed Martin’s Train Management System being deployed in the United States. The Train Management System provides substantial improvements in rail management efficiencies and in overall rail network safety. | 
