Lockheed's Aegis Missile Defense Expansion Passes $1.4 Billion Mark

The Department of Defense awarded Lockheed Martin's (NYSE: LMT  ) Mission Systems and Training division a $69.4 million sole-source, cost-plus-incentive-fee, cost-plus-award-fee contract modification Wednesday.

The contract, which funds Lockheed Martin's procurement of all of the material, equipment, and supplies that are necessary to conduct the planned development, testing, and integration of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense 5.0 capability upgrade onto U.S. Navy destroyers, is expected to be complete by May 31, 2014.

The 5.0 upgrade in question is part of a joint Navy and Missile Defense Agency project to migrate Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense capability into the DDG (i.e. guided missile destroyer) Modernization Program's Open Architecture (OA) program. If successful, the Aegis system will eventually be able to be used for ballistic missile defense aboard all Aegis-equipped destroyers and cruisers in the U.S. Navy, and potentially, aboard allied Aegis-equipped vessels, as well.

According to DoD, this latest contract award brings the value of Lockheed's underlying Aegis contract to more than $1.4 billion in total.

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