American fighter jet that Portugal wants to buy is facing software update issues
The F-35 fighter jet programme is facing new obstacles in implementing a critical software update, compromising combat capabilities while costs continue to rise.

Latest news and stories about military procurement in Portugal for expats and residents.
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The F-35 fighter jet programme is facing new obstacles in implementing a critical software update, compromising combat capabilities while costs continue to rise.

The Portuguese Air Force cannot plan its future based on promises for 2040 when it needs decisions in this decade.

The system developed by the French company Thales ensures protection against aerial threats on land, at sea, and in space. It has both short and long-range capabilities, capable of detecting objects within a five-thousand-kilometre radius. The SkyDefender integrates various defence systems and functions as a protective shield. Portugal is expected to receive a very short-range defence system later this year.

In a military re-equipment programme of the scale and significance of €5.8 billion, transparency demands targets, indicators, reports and accountability to Parliament and to the country.

Next-generation vessels will cost around €100 million each and are expected to arrive in Portugal in April 2028 (Navio Luís de Camões) and December 2028 (Navio D. Dinis).

Nuno Melo emphasises that 'over the next five years, by the end of the decade in 2030, twelve new ships will be delivered to the Navy': 'It's no small matter.'

Nuno Melo will attend the ceremony marking the start of construction of the ship “Luís de Camões”, one of the two replenishment ships Portugal ordered from Turkey, which are due to arrive in 2028.

The first helicopter for the future Army Support, Protection and Evacuation Helicopter Unit (UHAPE) is expected to arrive in the 'final quarter of 2026'. An order to purchase UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters was submitted in December to NATO's procurement agency (NSPA), as part of an overall investment estimated at around 50 million.

Military personnel observed operations in Romania involving the French-made CAESAR self-propelled howitzer.

In 2021, the company at the centre of the Public Prosecutor's Office investigation into the Navy's direct contracts while it was commanded by presidential candidate Henrique Gouveia e Melo recorded a sharp decline in activity after several years without public contracts, a situation that pushed its accounts into the red and hastened its closure...
