Lockheed, Northrop Contracts

The Navy gave Lockheed Martin Corp. a $16 million firm-fixed-price contract modification to a previously awarded contract for Vertical Launching Systems (VLS).

Lockheed will provide labor work on MK 41 Baseline VII Vertical Launching System launcher ship sets for three Royal Australian Navy Air Warfare Destroyer Class ships and one Spanish F-105 Class ship under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) Program.

This includes the labor associated with production of installation and checkout (INCO) spares, INCO special tools and test equipment, onboard repair parts and other ancillary equipment. The work will be performed by December 2009.

In another Navy contract award, Northrop Grumman Corp. [NOC] unit Integrated Systems in San Diego, Calif., will gain a $25.6 million modification to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract,

Northrop will provide 80 BQM-74E Aerial Targets for the U.S. Navy, which gets 78, and the government of the Netherlands, which gets 2.

The BQM-74E is a subsonic, subscale, jet-powered aerial target capable of being air launched or surface launched (land or shipboard).

This work is expected to be completed in January 2009.

The Naval Air Systems Command in Patuxent River, Md., handles the contract details.