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Lockheed Martin is a leading US aerospace manufacturer
Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) is a leading aerospace manufacturer and advanced technology company formed in 1995 by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta. It is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, a community in Montgomery County, Maryland, and employs 140,000 people worldwide. Robert J. Stevens is the current Chairman, President, and CEO. Lockheed Martin is the world's largest defense contractor (by defense revenue). As of 2005, 95% of Lockheed Martin's revenues came from the U.S. Department of Defense, other U.S. federal government agencies, and foreign military customers. A team led by prime contractor Lockheed Martin won the 2006 Collier Trophy for the development of the F-22 Raptor fighter jet. HistoryLockheed Martin was formed by a "merger of equals", both companies contributing important products to the new portfolio. Lockheed products included the Trident missile, P-3 Orion, F-16 Fighting Falcon (the production line being purchased from General Dynamics in 1993), F-22 Raptor, C-130 Hercules, A-4AR Fightinghawk and the DSCS-3 satellite. Martin Marietta products included Titan rockets, Sandia National Laboratories (management contract acquired in 1993), Space Shuttle external tank, Viking 1 and Viking 2 landers, the Transfer Orbit Stage (under subcontract to Orbital Sciences Corporation) and various satellite models. Shortly after the creation of the company Lockheed Martin acquired the majority of Loral Corporation's defense electronics and system integration businesses for $9.1 billion. The remainder of Loral became Loral Space & Communications. In 1998, Lockheed Martin abandoned plans to merge with Northrop Grumman due to government concerns over the potential strength of the new group (Lockheed/Northrop would have had control of 25% of the DoD's procurement budget). In September 1999, the Mars Climate Orbiter smashed into the surface of Mars and was destroyed due to a failure to convert English measures of rocket thrusts, miles, to metric measures, kilometers. Lockheed, the prime contractor for the mission, measured the thruster firings in pounds, even though NASA had requested metric measurements. The $250 million dollar spacecraft burned up or broke apart in the Mars' atmosphere due to the error. Lockheed accepted blame for the demise of the craft after an investigation revealed that the Lockheed team incorrectly programmed the Mars Climate Orbiter with English units instead of metric units. In 2000, Lockheed agreed to pay a $13 million settlement to the U.S. government for breaching the arms export control act. The company passed information to AsiaSat, of which a major shareholder is the Chinese government. According to the United States Department of State, the information given to AsiaSat may have helped China improve its missiles. In May 2000, Lockheed Martin sold Lockheed Martin Control Systems to BAE Systems. In November 2000, Lockheed completed the sale of its Aerospace Electronic Systems business to BAE Systems for $1.67 billion USD. This group encompassed Sanders, Fairchild Systems and Lockheed Martin Space Electronics & Communications. In 2001 Lockheed Martin won the contract to build the Joint Strike Fighter. This is the most important fighter aircraft procurement project since the F-16, with an initial order of 3,000 worth $200 billion before export orders. In 2003, Lockheed Martin benefited from a USAF decision to punish Boeing for conducting industrial espionage against its rival. The USAF revoked $1 billion worth of contracts from Boeing and awarded them to Lockheed Martin. The company sued Boeing in 1998 for stealing documents related to a military contract. On January 12, 2006, the U.S. Army pulled the plug on an $879 million Aerial Common Sensor contract with Lockheed Martin. The U.S. Army found that the weight of the Aerial Common Sensor electronics payload exceeded the Embraer 145 airframe, which was Lockheed's selected aircraft. In May 2006 it was reported in the Washington Post that when Robert Stevens took control of Lockheed Martin in 2004, he faced the dilemma that within 10 years 100,000 of the about 130,000 Lockheed Martin employees would be retiring. In 2006, Lockheed Corporation won a 3.9 billion dollar contract from NASA on August 31 to design and build the nation’s next spaceship for human flight, a craft called Orion. 
On December 1, 2006 all of Lockheed Martin's commercial launch operations were transferred to the United Launch Alliance (ULA). This is a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing, first announced May 2, 2005. On February 13, 2007 a New Mexico State Court found Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, liable for $4.7 million in damages for the firing of a former network security analyst, Shawn Carpenter. Mr. Carpenter had reported to his supervisors that hundreds of military installations and defense contractors' networks were compromised and sensitive information was being stolen -- including hundreds of sensitive Lockheed documents on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter project. When his supervisors told him to drop the investigation and do nothing with the information, he went to intelligence officials in the United States Army and later the FBI to address the national security breaches. When Sandia Corporation management discovered his actions months later, they revoked his security clearance and fired him. In April 2007, a faulty command sent to the $154 million Mars Global Surveyor from Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver caused an onboard battery to overheat, eventually causing a loss of power. The spacecraft was lost when the power loss cut off communications with the orbiter. Corporate governanceCurrent members of the board of directors of Lockheed Martin are: Edward Aldridge, Nolan Archibald, Marcus Bennett, James O. Ellis, Gwendolyn King, James Loy, Douglas McCorkindale, Eugene Murphy, Joseph Ralston, Frank Savage, Anne Stevens, Robert J. Stevens, James Ukropina, and Douglas Yearley. DivisionsAeronautics
Electronic Systems
Information Systems & Global Services
Space Systems
Others
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