Lockheed Martin Wins Contract Worth up to $2 Billion to Support the U.S. Antarctic Program

Work­ing with the Nation­al Sci­ence Foun­da­tion to enhance the program’s infra­struc­ture in sup­port of world-class research and discovery

ROCKVILLE, Md., Decem­ber 28th, 2011 — Lock­heed Mar­tin [NYSE: LMT] has been select­ed by the Nation­al Sci­ence Foun­da­tion (NSF) to oper­ate and main­tain the sup­port infra­struc­ture for the Unit­ed States Antarc­tic Pro­gram (USAP), which enables uni­ver­si­ties, research insti­tu­tions and fed­er­al agen­cies to con­duct sci­en­tif­ic research in the region. NSF is the des­ig­nat­ed sin­gle-point man­ag­er of the pro­gram, pro­vid­ing fund­ing for research in Antarc­ti­ca as well as logis­tics and infra­struc­ture need­ed by oth­er fed­er­al agen­cies for their research there.  The mul­ti­year con­tract is val­ued at approx­i­mate­ly $2 bil­lion if all options are exercised.

Under the new con­tract, Lock­heed Mar­tin will work with the NSF to imple­ment a cost-effec­tive, stream­lined infra­struc­ture for man­ag­ing work sta­tions and med­ical facil­i­ties, research ves­sels, con­struc­tion projects and remote sites in and around Antarc­ti­ca.  The cor­po­ra­tion also will mod­ern­ize tech­nolo­gies to trans­port sci­en­tists, staff and sup­plies to and from the Antarc­tic region.

“Lock­heed Mar­tin is proud to work with more than 3,000 pro­gram par­tic­i­pants involved in valu­able research in Antarc­ti­ca,” said Lin­da Good­en, exec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent of Lock­heed Martin’s Infor­ma­tion Sys­tems & Glob­al Solu­tions (IS&GS) busi­ness. “We have a long­stand­ing his­to­ry of sup­port­ing cus­tomers in remote loca­tions and logis­ti­cal­ly chal­leng­ing envi­ron­ments and are com­mit­ted to fos­ter­ing sci­en­tif­ic and tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tions that will ben­e­fit the world.”

NSF and the USAP have been anchor­ing U.S. pres­ence in Antarc­ti­ca since 1956 through its active and influ­en­tial sci­en­tif­ic research pro­gram, sup­port­ing fun­da­men­tal dis­cov­ery research that can only be done there and study­ing the Antarc­tic and its inter­ac­tions with the rest of the plan­et. The pro­gram goals include:  under­stand­ing the region and how its ecosys­tems depend on the polar envi­ron­ment; under­stand­ing its effects on (and respons­es to) glob­al process­es such as cli­mate; and using the region as a plat­form for fun­da­men­tal research in every sci­en­tif­ic dis­ci­pline.  Antarctica’s remote­ness and extreme cli­mate make it a unique and nat­ur­al lab­o­ra­to­ry environment.

“As the man­ag­er of the U.S. Antarc­tic Pro­gram, NSF looks for­ward to work­ing with Lock­heed Mar­tin over the com­ing years, address­ing togeth­er the chal­lenges of sup­port­ing research as the sci­en­tif­ic fron­tiers in Antarc­ti­ca advance and tech­nol­o­gy evolves to sup­port it,” said Karl Erb, direc­tor of NSF’s Office of Polar Pro­grams.  “In addi­tion to sup­port­ing fore­front research fund­ed by NSF and oth­er fed­er­al agen­cies, the pro­gram pro­vides the foun­da­tion for U.S. lead­er­ship in the gov­er­nance of the only con­ti­nent in the world set aside by inter­na­tion­al treaty for peace­ful pur­pos­es, of which sci­ence is the fore­most example.”

“Our team is excit­ed to ensure the Antarc­tic Pro­gram con­tin­ues to reach and even sur­pass its research goals,” said John Men­guc­ci, pres­i­dent of Lock­heed Martin’s IS&GS–Civil busi­ness. “We also are thrilled to work with the NSF in expand­ing its out­reach activ­i­ties to edu­cate stu­dents about the polar research and encour­age them to pur­sue careers in sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, engi­neer­ing and mathematics.” 

Lock­heed Martin’s IS&GS-Civil divi­sion serves var­i­ous non-defense U.S. gov­ern­ment agen­cies, inter­na­tion­al gov­ern­ments and reg­u­lat­ed com­mer­cial indus­tries. It is respon­si­ble for a wide array of infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy sys­tems and ser­vices in areas such as health care, ener­gy, trans­porta­tion, infor­ma­tion and cyber secu­ri­ty, extreme envi­ron­ments, cit­i­zen pro­tec­tion and space exploration.

Head­quar­tered in Bethes­da, Md., Lock­heed Mar­tin is a glob­al secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny that employs about 126,000 peo­ple world­wide and is prin­ci­pal­ly engaged in the research, design, devel­op­ment, man­u­fac­ture, inte­gra­tion and sus­tain­ment of advanced tech­nol­o­gy sys­tems, prod­ucts and ser­vices. The corporation’s 2010 sales from con­tin­u­ing oper­a­tions were $45.8 billion.

Lock­heed Mar­tin Media Contacts:

Erin Tassey, (301) 519‑6554 or (240) 477‑3475; erin.tassey@lmco.com