The House Armed Services Committee recently highlighted that the weapons system of the US' F-35 fleet will have to undergo a series of software updates in order to account for technological advancements by adversaries.
The congressional committee's concerns were detailed in a September report for Fiscal Year 2022.
"The committee supports the F–35 program and acknowledges it is a capability that can be used against advanced integrated air defense systems operating against the United States or its foreign partners and allies during high-end, very contested contingencies when the aircraft is finally installed with Technical Refresh-3 hardware and Block 4 software capabilities," the report read.
"But given the extraordinary costs to date of the program, the committee calls into question the actual affordability of the program for the taxpayer after 20 years since its inception."
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) also expressed a negative outlook for the F-35 program within a July report. The GAO projected that the US Air Force will be faced with incredible sustainment costs once F-35 operations reach their peak in 2036.
"If the projected annual sustainment cost overruns — conservatively estimated at tens of billions of dollars when aggregated — are not reversed and brought into alignment with the affordability constraints, over time there will be increasing and significant pressure on DOD’s annual budget as the number of the aircraft in the F-35 fleet increases," the watchdog warned.