Over just the past two in-sequester days, the Pentagon has awarded a total of 42 separate contracts to various contractors, worth well over $4 billion in aggregate.
Lockheed Martin (LMT 1.82%) made out particularly well with the following pair of contracts.
The larger of these two Lockheed awards is a $100.7 million contract tapping Lockheed to perform "design, development, integration, test and delivery" work on software and hardware comprising the Aegis Combat System Engineering Agent (CSEA). Lockheed will be upgrading Aegis on U.S. Navy CG 47-class guided missile cruisers and DDG 51-class guided missile destroyers, as well as installing the system on "future surface combatant Aegis ship classes." Work on this contract should be completed sometime in May 2018.
The smaller of these two awards, at $72.2 million, goes to the company's Aeronautics division and is designated an "undefinitized modification" to a previously awarded Low Rate Initial Production Lot 6 advance acquisition contract. This contract modification pays Lockheed for supplying support equipment to the F-35A Pilot Training Center 1 at Luke Air Force Base in Glendale, Ariz. It also hires Lockheed to perform "associated Data Quality Integration Management supplier support tasks" related to the warplane at locations in Italy and Australia. Italy and Australia are members of an eight-nation consortium assisting the U.S. in building the F-35, in line to order it when it's ready, and helping to shoulder the financial costs of developing the plane.
