Lockheed Martin Wins $490 Million Aegis Contract

Lockheed Martin has won a $490 million contract to bring integrated air and missile defense (IAMD) capabilities to new destroyers of the US, Japan and the Republic of Korea.

The ships will be equipped with Aegis Baseline 9, the advanced version of the combat system, capable of IAMD. The Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense will be installed on new US Navy destroyer, two Japanese Atago-class destroyers and three South Korea KDX-III destroyers.

The Aegis system includes the company's SPY-1 radar, the Navy's most advanced multi-function radar system. When paired with the MK 41 Vertical Launching System, it is capable of delivering missiles for every mission and threat environment in naval warfare.

"We will continue the Lockheed Martin tradition of providing Aegis on-time and on-budget so these destroyers are prepared to meet the evolving demands of securing the U.S. homeland and its allies." said Jim Sheridan, director of Lockheed Martin Aegis U.S. Navy programs.

This contract follows the joint-missile defense exercise in June in which Aegis destroyers from the three nations shared data while detecting and tracking a simulated missile threat.

Under this new production hardware contract, the company will expand the Aegis fleet in Japan. The seventh and eighth Aegis ships will join Japan's fleet. Aegis provides four of Japan's Kongo-class destroyers and two Atago-class destroyers with advanced sea, air and undersea threat detection capabilities. The Self Defense Forces ofJapan joined the Aegis family in 1993.

The Ageis will also join the next three KDX-III Sejong the Great Class destroyers, a multi-purpose destroyer with air and land defense and anti-submarine capabilities in Republic of Korea (RoK). Aegis is aboard three KDX-III destroyers. They are RoK Sejong the Great, RoK Yulgok Yi I and RoK Seoae Ryu Sungryong, which are the largest surface warfare ships to carry Aegis.

The Republic of Korea joined the international Aegis fleet in 2008, when the navy commissioned the first ship of the class,Sejong the Great.