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Lockheed Martin Receives Marine Corps Training Contract for HIMARS

DALLAS, TX, October 9th, 2001 -- Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control has received a contract from the U.S. Marine Corps to develop training for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) which the Corps is acquiring. The training will consists of cadre training, individual and collective training, maintenance and sustainment training. Training will be conducted with Battery F, 2nd Battalion, 14th Marine Regiment located in Oklahoma City, Okla. Distance learning will take place at Fort Sill, Okla. HIMARS is a C-130 transportable, wheeled, indirect fire, rocket/missile system capable of firing all rockets and missiles in the current and future Multiple Launch Rocket System Family of Munitions (MFOM). HIMARS addresses an identified, critical warfighting requirement in USMC fire support and provides 24 hour ground-based, responsive General Support/General Support Reinforcing/Reinforcing (GS/GSR/R) indirect fires, which accurately engage targets at, long range with high volumes of lethal fire. The system will extend the range of support provided to warfighting forces from 30 km to 60 km.

Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control developed and fabricated four operational HIMARS prototypes as part the Army's Rapid Force Projection Initiative Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration contract, which was awarded to the company in March 1996. Three of the wheeled vehicles (a platoon) are undergoing a user evaluation at the Army's XVIIIth Airborne Corps Artillery. Missiles and Fire Control is maintaining the fourth vehicle for testing and evaluation.

The HIMARS program entered the maturation or engineering and manufacturing (EMD) phase in December 1999. Six HIMARS launchers are being built for the US Army and two for the USMC in this phase of the program. These launchers will be used for engineering and development testing.

The HIMARS fire control system, electronics and communications units are interchangeable with the MLRS M270A1 launcher, and the crew and training are the same. Because of its size, HIMARS can be deployed into areas previously inaccessible to the larger aircraft required to transport the standard MLRS launcher. It also retains the self-loading, autonomous features that have made MLRS the premier rocket artillery system in the world.

Employing more than 8,500 people, Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with additional base operations in Orlando, Fla., and manufacturing and assembly facilities in Sunnyvale, Calif., Chelmsford, Mass., Camden, Ark., Horizon City and Lufkin, Texas, Ocala, Fla., White Sands Missile Range, N.M., and Troy, Ala. The company is a business unit of Lockheed Martin Systems Integration in Bethesda, Md.

Craig Vanbebber, Manager - Communications 972-603-1615 e-mail: craig.vanbebber@lmco.com