Lockheed Unit Wins $2-Billion Army Contract : Aerospace: The company defeats Hughes in its bid to develop an anti-missile system. Rockwell and Litton are subcontractors.
After an intense competition, the Pentagon selected Lockheed’s Missiles & Space Co. over Hughes Aircraft on Friday to design and eventually build a new ballistic missile defense system for the Army, a program worth roughly $2 billion.
The Sunnyvale-based operation, with a team of associated subcontractors, received an initial four-year, $689-million contract to demonstrate the technology for an anti-missile defense system and build 10 interceptors that would be used in testing.
The program, known as the theater high altitude area defense system, or THAAD, is part of the Strategic Defense Initiative--one of the few military programs that hold potential for significant future business in the defense industry.
“It is a major win for Lockheed,” said Tom McKenzie, Lockheed’s THAAD program manager.
Hughes had created a special business unit to compete for the program at its Canoga Park facility and had planned to do portions of the work there as well as in Fullerton and Tucson. A spokesman said the contract loss is likely to affect some jobs, but not immediately. Hughes had a couple of hundred workers assigned to the program.
McKenzie said Lockheed will eventually have about 700 workers assigned to the program in Sunnyvale, Alabama and Texas. The firm is planning to build a new plant in rural Alabama to produce the missile. Included on Lockheed’s team is Litton Industry’s systems division of Agoura Hills and Rockwell International’s Rocketdyne unit in Canoga Park. Each firm will receive about $50 million of the initial contract. Lockheed’s team also includes Honeywell, Loral, Westinghouse and United Technologies.
The THAAD program is meant to be a cornerstone in improving U.S. defenses against enemy ballistic missiles on the battlefield, providing a substantial improvement over the leak-prone Patriot system used in the Persian Gulf war last year.
The THAAD would be capable of intercepting missiles above the Earth’s atmosphere, more than 20 miles up, at ranges of 50 to 1,000 miles. Unlike Patriot, the lethal debris from the missile would be unlikely to rain down on a target, even when a successful interception is made.
Another important distinction of the THAAD is that it will be the military’s first so-called hit-to-kill weapon, in which an extremely precise guidance and control system will allow the interceptor to physically ram a target and destroy it without a warhead.
Congress wants a new ground-based missile defense system available by 1996. The timetable calls for having a fully operational THAAD system in the field by the year 2000. Army officials, however, have acknowledged that because of its range, the missile might violate the Antiballistic Missile Treaty.
