Skunk Works and Dutch NLR Expand Strategic Aerospace Partnership
Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works division and the Royal Netherlands Aerospace Centre (NLR) announced an expanded strategic partnership on October 15 at the NL-US Defense Industry Days in Washington. The move broadens a memorandum of understanding the two organizations signed roughly two years earlier as an exploratory agreement.
Both sides describe the partnership’s goal as moving advanced technologies out of the research lab and into operational solutions that support the readiness of the Royal Netherlands Air Force. Over the past two years they say they built joint working groups, workshops and shared frameworks, and worked through differences in organizational culture along the way.
The next phase of the partnership rests on four pillars: connecting the Dutch industrial base to the international supply chain, coordinating military operational analysis, aligning technology roadmaps, and collaborating on unmanned aerial systems (UAS). Thermoplastics was named as the one specific project the partners have already matured.
Royal NLR CEO Tineke van der Veen said modern aerospace development relies on global integration rather than isolation. Skunk Works Vice President and General Manager Ron Fehlen said the two organizations have matured specific projects involving cutting-edge technologies such as thermoplastics. The announcement did not disclose financial terms, named programs beyond thermoplastics, or a detailed schedule.
The Netherlands is one of the founding partner nations in the F-35 program and maintains a fighter force that rotates regularly through NATO’s eastern-flank deployments. NLR is the country’s central civil and military aerospace research body, and the expanded tie-up with Lockheed Martin aims to push Dutch industry’s role beyond its existing place in the F-35 supply chain and into earlier-stage research and development.
The dedicated focus on unmanned aerial systems lines up with the Royal Netherlands Air Force’s growing interest in uncrewed platforms, as NATO’s eastern-flank deterrence posture increasingly incorporates unmanned systems. That suggests similar partnership models could be replicated with other allied nations going forward.
Skunk Works’ bilateral research partnerships of this kind are read as part of a broader strategy of sharing technology accumulated on the F-35, F-22 and classified next-generation platforms with allied industrial bases. Lockheed has tried similar models before with partners including Australia, the United Kingdom and South Korea.
Thermoplastic composites have drawn growing interest in aerospace manufacturing in recent years because they allow faster production cycles and easier repair than traditional thermoset composites. Integrating these materials into serial production of defense platforms carries the potential to cut both manufacturing costs and maintenance downtime, and the Skunk Works-NLR work in this area is being presented as the first tangible output of the partnership’s research phase. The two organizations said they expect work across the four pillars to mature into concrete projects and agreements going forward, though they gave no firm timeline for that transition.
Sources
- Lockheed Martin / PRNewswire, “Skunk Works and the Royal Netherlands Aerospace Centre Expand Strategic Collaboration,” October 15, 2026 — used for the agreement’s scope, the four pillars and executive quotes.
- Royal NLR (Koninklijk Nederlands Lucht- en Ruimtevaartcentrum) corporate statements — used for the institute’s mission and its relationship with the Royal Netherlands Air Force.
