Software for New F-35 Logistics System Starts Going Live

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.—The effort to replace the F-35’s old, troubled maintenance and logistics system is picking up steam after years of work, a Lockheed Martin spokesperson told reporters Sept. 14, with new computer hardware fielded across the fleet and updated software starting to roll out.

Mireya Villarreal, Lockheed Martin’s spokesperson for the F-35 program, told reporters at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber conference last week that software upgrades for the Operational Data Integrated Network, or ODIN, have recently begun, and “that transition is going well.”

Sean Jackson, vice president for Lockheed’s F-35 development program, said in a follow-up statement that the ODIN software was installed at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., in late August. This marked the first operational delivery of ODIN software, he said.

“The new ODIN software takes advantage of capabilities based on recent fleetwide ODIN hardware upgrades to support F-35 fleet operations,” Jackson said. “Lockheed Martin continues to work hand-in-hand with our Air Force partners, aligning the ODIN software upgrade cadence that will cascade new and upgraded capabilities across the fleet.”

ODIN is replacing a previous system called ALIS, for Autonomic Logistics Information System. ALIS was meant to schedule and track F-35 maintenance, keep an eye on which jets were ready to fly, and help the military order spare parts, as well as tracking data in-flight and sending information on how well various systems were performing to maintainers on the ground.

But ALIS was deeply flawed. A 2020 Government Accountability Office report found crucial data that ALIS was supposed to automatically collect was often inaccurate or misleading. This forced maintainers to keep track of that information themselves, sometimes manually entering data in Excel spreadsheets in a time-consuming way. 

Its interface was hard to navigate and not user-friendly, and its server units were massive, weighing in at 200 pounds apiece. The entire system weighed nearly 900 pounds and needed a whole room to operate, which officials said made ALIS difficult to deploy or store on a ship.

In 2020, the F-35 Joint Program Office announced Lockheed would design and build ODIN to replace ALIS. Officials say ODIN weighs less than a quarter of the entire ALIS system, has improved computer processing time, and is more secure and easier to service and support. The Pentagon started rolling out new hardware, called ODIN Base Kits, to F-35 squadrons in 2022. The kit can run both the ALIS and ODIN software.

Back in February, the F-35 program office issued a contract modification worth up to $47.7 million to Lockheed for further work on ODIN. Since 2020, the Pentagon has spent $255.1 million under the indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract, which has a ceiling of $309.3 million.