The Navy gave Lockheed Martin Corp. [LMT] a $654.9 million contract to for system support for Trident II D5 fleet ballistic missiles in the current fiscal year 2007 ending Sept. 30, the company announced.

Lockheed will provide D5 production support, including reentry system hardware, and operations and maintenance to support the readiness and reliability of missile systems, both deployed aboard fleet ballistic missile submarines and at on-shore facilities.

First deployed in 1990 and scheduled for operational deployment until 2042, the Trident II D5 is aboard 12 of an eventual 14 Trident II-configured Ohio-class submarines.

The three-stage, solid-propellant, inertial-guided ballistic missile has a nominal range of 4,000 nautical miles and carries multiple independently targeted reentry vehicles.

S-Band Radar Advances

Lockheed also displayed live tracks with its internally developed Scalable Solid-State S-band Radar (S4R) engineering development model (EDM) that can be used in missile defense.

Those live tracks demonstrate the proven approach to an active antenna-based radar system designed with commercial hardware and open architecture software, according to Lockheed.

The S4R EDM is an active, electronically-steered, antenna-based radar system designed to be scalable to support multiple missions, including air surveillance, cruise missile defense, ballistic missile defense, counter target acquisition and littoral operations.

This design is derived from the S-band antenna developed for the Navy Volume Search Radar on the DDG-1000 next-generation destroyer.

The S4R EDM was developed using Silicon Carbide (SiC) based high-power transmit/receive modules. SiC provides greater power than other commonly used materials due to its increased heat tolerance. With more power, the radar has longer range and provides more precise target discrimination.

Javelin Missile Scores In Tests

The Javelin Block 1 missile scored well in qualification flight tests at the Army Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala., Raytheon Co. [RTN] and Lockheed announced jointly.

Block 1 missiles feature an improved rocket motor that will reduce the missile’s time of flight; improvements to the command launch unit (CLU); software enhancements and an improved performance warhead that increases Javelin’s lethality against a wider range of target sets, according to the firms.

Those successful flight tests build on the Javelin combat-proven record of greater than 95 percent mission success including more than 1,000 rounds fired in ongoing operations worldwide.

It is a man-portable medium-range close combat and anti-armor weapon system.