The Air Force awarded Lockheed Martin a $305 million contract for Lot 13 production of the AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) and its extended-range variant, the JASSM-ER, the company reported Thursday. The contract covers 140 each of the baseline JASSM and the ER version, and includes missiles for the US Air Force as well as partner countries, bringing orders up to 2,300 missiles. Besides the US, Australia, Poland, and Finland have purchased the stealthy cruise missile. The contract represents the fifth production lot for JASSM, which is built in Troy, Ala. Lockheed Martin has been expanding the facility to increase production, which will include another variant, the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile, or LRASM, an anti-ship/anti-mobile target variant. About 1,700 JASSMs have already been delivered. The missile has been integrated on the B-1B, B-2, B-52, F-16, F-15E, and foreign F/A-18s.
The U.S. and Sweden signed a bilateral Defense Cooperation Agreement on Dec. 5 that will strengthen military ties between them and likely lead to U.S. troops and prepositioned gear on Swedish soil. Swedish Defense minister Pal Jonson said the war in Ukraine prompted Sweden's joining NATO and he laid out…