A $900 million sustainment program for F-16 fighter planes will involve the first U.S.-based industry depot, the U.S. Air Force announced.

The 10-year contract was awarded to Lockheed Martin, which will use its Greenville, S.C., site to provide depot-level maintenance and modernization of the planes throughout their life cycles, the company said in a press release.

The Continental United States Depot contract is the first use of the contracted depot concept for Air Force maintenance within the United States, the Air Force said Friday in a press release.

There are already two overseas F-16 contract depots, one in Europe and the other in the Pacific.

The Greenville facility has 12 maintenance bays and can provide "the major repair, overhaul, or complete rebuilding of weapon systems, end items, parts, assemblies, and subassemblies; manufacture of parts; technical assistance; and testing," as expressed in an overview statement by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Sustainment.

The F-16, known as the Fighting Falcon, comprises about 45 percent of the current Air Force fleet.

Over 4,500 F-16s, flown by 25 countries, have been produced since its first official flight in 1974.

The adaptable multirole fighter plane has had eight variants.

In November, Lockheed Martin was announced as the principal contractor in a $175.4 million contract to upgrade the avionics, software, communication equipment, navigational aids, and cockpits of F-16AMs in the Romanian Air Force.

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