Aerostar, Lockheed Martin Open the First European HIMARS Sustainment Centre in Romania

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Aerostar S.A. in partnership with Lockheed Martin has inaugurated Europe’s first certified HIMARS Sustainment Centre. This new facility strengthens the existing relationship between global defence and aerospace company Lockheed Martin and Aerostar S.A., which have partnered on similar sustainment activities for Romania’s Black Hawk and F-16 fighter fleets.

Located in Bacău, the sustainment centre will contribute to the creation and sustainment of high-value jobs in Romania and deliver increased readiness with lower operational costs for the Romania’s Land Forces.

“At Lockheed Martin, we're proud of our longstanding strategic partnership with Romania, which is delivering meaningful partnerships that foster innovation and resilience to enhance Romania’s defence industrial base,” Ray Piselli, said Lockheed Martin’s Vice President of international business at the ceremony in Bacău.

The new facility builds on the success of similar work already carried out by Aerostar and supports continued sustainment for critical defence assets. Romania will see support operations for the Land Forces HIMARS fleet carried out for Romania by engineers and technicians from Aerostar.

“Today’s event further expands our strategic relationship with Lockheed Martin, a world leader in aerospace and defence. This relationship is sustaining Aerostar with new technical capabilities and knowledge and firmly positioning us within Lockheed Martin’s global supply chain which could open the door to new and exciting opportunities in the future,” said, Alexandru Filip, General Director of Aerostar.”

In the past 12 months we witnessed milestones such as the inauguration of the first European F-16 Training Center, the extension of our AI research partnership with Technical University of Cluj-Napoca and the inauguration of the first European maintenance Center for Black Hawk and we significantly increased Aerostar’s capability to ensure advanced maintenance for  F-16 jet fighters.

Romania’s HIMARS provide credible deterrent capability in support of defence and national security. HIMARS is a combat-proven system that offers deterrence against aggression and significantly increases the capability of NATO and Armed Forces across the globe. A lightweight mobile launcher, HIMARS is transportable via C-130 and larger aircraft for rapid deployment, and fires ATACMS missiles, the next-generation Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) and GMLRS rockets to include the extended-range variant– ER GMLRS. Romania was the first European user of HIMARS in 2021.

Lockheed Martin has been a partner to Romania for more than 25 years and is today a strategic partner for national defence, industry and academia. It partners with Romania on a variety of defence and security programmes including military aircraft, missile defence, precision fire, radar and pilot training.

The company’s involvement extends to include links with academic institutions, such as Romania’s Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, which is studying artificial intelligence applications to support national security, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.