Air Force Awards Lockheed Martin $106.6 Million Contract for Laser Guided Bomb Kits
ARCHBALD, PA, March 19th, 2003 -- Lockheed Martin has received an $106.6 million U.S. Air Force (USAF) contract to produce Paveway II GBU-12 and -16 Laser Guided Bomb (LGB) kits. The award is part of a $281 million contract covering the base year of an "indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity" contract with six one-year options. While the Air Force is responsible for the procurement, the majority of the kits will be used to restock U.S. Navy inventories, with the balance going to the Air Force. Lockheed Martin will begin delivering the kits in December 2003. Lockheed Martin currently is producing GBU-16 kits for the U.S. Navy under a December 2001 contract. Following qualification by the Air Force in August 2002, Lockheed Martin received an $18.6 million contract for Paveway GBU-10 and -12 kits, which will be produced and delivered this year.
"We are pleased to have the opportunity to work with the Lockheed Martin team on increasing our inventory of this very important weapons system," said Maj. Steve Toth, Paveway II program manager at Hill AFB, where procurement decisions about these precision-guided munitions are made. LGBs have been used extensively in the war against terrorism.
"We are delighted to have won the Air Force's confidence to this degree and will be executing this contract to our usual high standards. We are proud to have such a significant role in producing a key weapon in the nation's fighting arsenal," said Cynthia Sailar, v.p. and general manager of the Archbald facility, where the kits are made.
Lockheed Martin won its first international LGB award in December 2002 with a $2.7 million contract award from the Australian Royal Air Force.
Each LGB kit consists of a Computer Control Group, which is the front-end guidance system, plus an Air Foil Group, which includes flight stability fins on the back of each Paveway II LGB. The kits significantly improve the accuracy of gravity weapons - often referred to as "dumb bombs" - thereby reducing collateral damage and risks to U.S. and allied ground forces. Paveway II GBU-16 kits are used on 1,000-lb. bombs, while GBU-10 and GBU-12 kits are used on 2,000-lb. and 500-lb. bombs respectively.
Since 1990, Lockheed Martin has delivered to the U.S. Navy and customers in seven countries over 30,000 laser guided training rounds, which are used to train aircrews in place of more expensive laser guided bombs. The Paveway II guidance kits built and tested by Lockheed Martin draw on key technologies and components from the training rounds but meet more stringent live-weapon and aircraft interface specifications.
A leader in the design, development and integration of radar systems, vessel traffic and port safety, simulation and training systems and other complex electronic systems, Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics & Surveillance Systems (NE&SS) - Radar Systems serves a wide range of customers. These include all branches of the U.S. armed services, including the Coast Guard, as well as other agencies within the U.S. Departments of Commerce, Transportation and State, and defense and transportation departments of countries on six continents. NE&SS-Radar Systems employs over 3,000 people with facilities in the U.S. and three other countries, and is a unit of Lockheed Martin Corporation.
Ellen Mitchell, cell: 315-427-0967; office: 315-456-3296;
e-mail ellen.mitchell@lmco.com
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