NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.-As the F-35 program aims to deliver a "fully combat capable" fighter next year with the Technology Refresh-3 (TR-3) software upgrade-the foundation for dozens of envisioned Block 4 weapons and sensors, a significant part of the effort is rejuvenating laboratory capacity.

Lockheed Martin

[LMT], the builder of the F-35, is to invest $350 million over five years for such capacity.

"As a team, we have to hold industry accountable, and we have to change the future for the F-35 program," Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Schmidt, the F-35 program executive officer, said here on Tuesday during the Air and Space Forces Association's annual Air, Space and Cyber conference. "Part of the reason we got in the situation we got into is because we haven't invested in our lab capacity, to making the F-35 enterprise state-of-the-art."

In February, an F-35 program software review team devised a plan to improve software development, Schmidt said.

The program is docking Lockheed Martin $5 million per jet for fighters delivered without the TR-3 elements desired as the result of TR-3 "truncation" negotiations in the works since early this year (Defense Daily, Jan. 23).

"I asked industry, Lockheed specifically, to kick start the investment in those things [lab capacity] during the truncation negotiations, and they have invested a significant amount of money as part of the negotiated deal, if you will, to get these jets restarted," Schmidt said on Tuesday. "We need to change the way we do development in the F-35 program and get ourselves to a place where we can truly deliver on our promises relative to development."