South Korea Buy Aegis Weapon System $40,6 M

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Lockheed Martin Mission Systems and Sensors in Moorestown, N.J., has been awarded a $40.6 million contract to equip a third South Korean destroyer with its Aegis Weapon System, the Defense Department said in its Wednesday contracts e-mail.

“We fully expected this and have been working together with the U.S. Navy and the Republic of Korea to make this happen,” said Doug Wilhelm, the director of international programs for Surface-Sea Based Missile Defense Systems, which is the business line of Mission Systems and Sensors responsible for the Aegis.

The first of the three destroyers to be equipped with the Aegis was commissioned in late 2008 and completed its at-sea missile testing last summer.

The second ship was commissioned last summer. Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) is working with the U.S. and Korean navies to ready it for its at-sea missile testing, which is scheduled for the summer of 2012.

The third destroyer is scheduled to be launched next month, commissioned in the summer of 2012 and perform its testing two years after that.

Contracts on the ships were issued to the Mission Systems and Sensors unit of Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin Corp. by the U.S. Navy under the Foreign Military Sales program.

“We work with and through the U.S. Navy to satisfy the requirements of the end customer,” Wilhelm said.

The Aegis Weapon System can simultaneously attack land targets, submarines and surface ships, while automatically implementing defenses against aircraft and missiles.

It’s on 95 ships in the U.S., South Korean, Japanese, Spanish, Norwegian and Australian navies and has launched more than 3,800 missiles in tests and actual operations in its cumulative total of 1,200 years at sea.(Bizjournals/WDN)

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