The U.S. Navy has awarded Lockheed Martin a $73.9 million contract modification to procure, test and deliver Indra Rigel radar electronic countermeasures systems for four Multi-Mission Surface Combatant ships being built for Saudi Arabia, according to a Department of War contract announcement.
The award modifies an existing contract and will be funded entirely through Foreign Military Sales financing for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Work will be performed primarily in Madrid, Spain, where Indra is headquartered, with a smaller share of the work done in Moorestown, New Jersey. The contract is expected to be completed by February 2031. The Supervisor of Shipbuilding, Conversion and Repair in Bath, Maine, is managing the award.
The Rigel system is an electronic support measures suite that detects and analyzes radar signals from other vessels to identify and classify potential threats. Indra has said the system gives the ships greater situational awareness and survivability in contested waters.
Indra is delivering the system with support from SAMI-AEC, a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia’s state-owned SAMI conglomerate, building on the two companies’ earlier work equipping Saudi Arabia’s Avante 2200-class corvettes with similar technology.
The four MMSC vessels are a derivative of the U.S. Navy’s Freedom-variant Littoral Combat Ship, built by Lockheed Martin and Fincantieri Marinette Marine in Wisconsin under a Foreign Military Sales case Saudi Arabia signed in 2017, Defence Blog reported.
Each ship measures 118 meters (387 feet) in length, reaches speeds above 30 knots and has a range of 5,000 nautical miles (9,260 kilometers). The ships carry an eight-cell Mk 41 vertical launch system for MBDA’s Sea Ceptor air defense missiles, Harpoon anti-ship missiles, a BAE Systems Mk 110 57mm gun and a Raytheon SeaRAM system, and use Lockheed Martin’s COMBATSS-21 combat management system built on the Aegis Common Source Library.
The first vessel in the class, HMS Saud, launched at Fincantieri Marinette Marine on December 20, 2025. Naval News reported in August that the MMSC program faces additional design fixes and delays affecting all four ships, without specifying a revised delivery timeline. The Rigel system is one of several enhancements Saudi Arabia added beyond the baseline U.S. Navy Freedom-variant design, alongside a Saab Ceros 200 fire control radar. (U.S. Department of War; Defence Blog; Photo © Saudi Ministry of Defense)
