Lockheed Martin
(
LMT
) won a $104 million contract from the U.S. Air Force Space
Command Space and Missile Center to provide backing to the ground
control systems in the Global Positioning System ("GPS")
satellites programs.
As per the contract, Lockheed Martin will offer technical
support to the command and control ground systems, hardware and
communications engineering, system engineering, space vehicle,
ground equipment exercises, software testing and hardware
maintenances.
Lockheed Martin will also provide sustainment engineering
assistance to the GPS control systems. This in turn would allow
the Air Force Command 2nd operation to smoothly carry out its
on-orbit control operations in the satellite group.
The contract will be carried out for a period of approximately
6 years from January 2013 through June 2019. Lockheed Martin will
also be helped by small business entities like Arctic Slope
Research Corporation ("ASRC"), ISYS Technologies, Tigua
Technology Services and Overlook Systems Technologies.
These companies will hand out hardware engineering, technical
order management, systems administrations and software testing
services. Apart from this, another player, Ogden Air Logistics
Center will offer Depot level maintenance and test supports.
We expect the company's diversified business will lend
constancy to its future returns. Recently, it clinched a $755
million contract for the production and management of the PATRIOT
Advanced Capability-3 ("PAC-3") Missile Segment program.
We believe the company's significant backlog orders of about
$75.6 billion at the end of the first nine months of 2012 and
encouraging prospects from the Intelligence Surveillance
Reconnaissance ("ISR") programs, unmanned systems, force
protection, cyber-security and missile defense operations will
act as positive triggers in the near term.
However, uncertainty regarding the U.S. government's defense
spending cuts in 2013 could weigh on Lockheed Martin's growth
goals. Lockheed Martin currently carries a Zacks Rank #3
(Hold).
Another Zacks #3 Ranked player in the defense domain is
Northrop Grumman Corp
(
NOC
). Northrop picked up a few long-term profitable contracts like
the $80 million deal with Space Naval and Warfare System Command
for the indefinite-quantity/indefinite-delivery of Next
Generation Command and Control Processor ("NGC2P") Technology
Refresh and Link 22 development.
Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, the $30.22 billion
aerospace and defense company, Lockheed Martin primarily engages
in research, design, development, manufacture, integration and
sustainment of advanced technology systems and products.
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