Lockheed Martin (LMT -0.27%) landed two contracts in Tuesday's list of new Pentagon spending awards -- one large, one not so much.
The bigger of Lockheed's two contract wins was actually a modification to an existing contract. Lockheed will receive $101.6 million to pay for "re-phasing" a Spacecraft Integration and Test contract to put it in line with new launch dates for a pair of Defense Meteorological Satellite Program, or DMSP, launches, specifically Flight 19 and Flight 20.
Lockheed notes on its website that the DMSP is the longest-running satellite program "ever," having lasted 50 years already, and apparently still going strong. Its mission is to use satellites in near-polar orbits to monitor visible and infrared cloud cover on Earth; measure precipitation, surface temperatures, and soil moisture; and collect specialized meteorological, oceanographc, and solar-geophysical information. The two flights that the modification to this contract concerns are the final two satellites remaining to be launched under DMSP.
Lockheed's second contract win Tuesday is also a modification, but this one is considerably smaller in value -- just $8.8 million. Lockheed will be sustaining the Air Force's Advance Extremely High Frequency System Development and Demonstration Program, which maintains military communications satellites used "to provide secure, survivable communications to U.S. warfighters during all levels of conflict." Although this particular modification involves just a few million dollars, the Pentagon notes that the total value of the underlying contract being modified now exceeds $8.57 billion.
