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Lockheed Martin to Enhance U.S. Air Force's Biological Early Warning System Sensors

MANASSAS, VA, April 17th, 2003 -- The U.S. Air Force has selected Lockheed Martin to refurbish its Biological Aerosol Warning System (BAWS) sensors. BAWS, developed by Lockheed Martin for the U.S. military in 1996 as part of an advanced technology demonstration, monitors the perimeter of key military areas to provide an early warning against biological aerosol attacks. Composed of multiple remote sensor stations and a base station, BAWS provides biological detection information along with wind speed and direction, and location data. The remote stations transfer the information to the BAWS base station where it is compared with other data to determine alarm conditions and generate detection reports. The base station's software enables the operator to view the status of remote stations deployed in a network array or monitor the status of any single remote station. Under terms of the new contract, valued at approximately $890,000, Lockheed Martin will make enhancements identified during tests at the Air Force's Force Protection Battle Laboratory.

"It is extremely critical for our nation's military personnel to closely monitor their operating environment to detect the presence of threat agents," said Al McClendon, program manager for Lockheed Martin's Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Defense Systems. "Our highly mobile BAWS units already are in service with some NATO countries and will be an important element in helping protect U.S. Armed Forces."

The Lockheed Martin Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Defense Systems business area is part of the company's Naval Electronics & Surveillance Systems (NE&SS)-Undersea Systems business unit, a leader in integrating complex systems for domestic and international military, civil government and commercial customers. NE&SS-Undersea Systems is assessed at Level 5 against the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute's (SEI) Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI®), the highest level possible. Lockheed Martin NE&SS is a unit of Lockheed Martin's Systems Integration business area.

Carolyn Fray, 703.367.2323, or email: carolyn.fray@lmco.com