Lockheed Martin is an aerospace manufacturer and provider of systems and IT services. It was formed in 1995 from the merger of Lockheed Corporation and portions of Martin Marietta Corporation. (The portion of Martin Marietta which provides aggregates was not included in the merger and remains a standalone company.) It is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland.
As of 2026 the company is organized into four divisions:
- Aeronautics (based in Fort Worth, Texas, with major operations in Marietta, Georgia, and Palmdale, California); notable programs include the F-16, the F-22, and the F-35
- This division includes the famed "Skunk Works" (or Advanced Development Programs) which is responsible for some of the most advanced aircraft ever, in part because it works outside the regular bureaucracy of large corporations.
- Missiles and Fire Control (based in Grand Prairie, Texas, with major operations in Orlando, Florida); notable programs include the PAC-3 Patriot missile, THAAD, HIMARS, and JASSM and its variant LRASM
- Rotary and Mission Systems (based in Moorestown Township, New Jersey); this division includes the legacy programs of Sikorsky which Lockheed Martin purchased in 2015
- Space (based in Littleton, Colorado)
A proposed merger between Lockheed Martin and Aerojet Rocketdyne was blocked from occurring by the FTC; prior to the decision, in response the company argued it should be given the same merger conditions that competitor Northrop Grumman was given upon its purchase of Orbital ATK (which was Aerojet's primary competitor in the solid rocket booster business).[1] Aerojet would later be purchased in 2022 by another major defense contractor, L3Harris Technologies, which did receive FTC approval.
Notable Skunkworks Aircraft
- P-38 Lightning
- P-80 Shooting Star
- XF-90
- F-104 Starfighter
- U-2
- SR-71 Blackbird
- XST (Have Blue), the prototype for the F-117 Nighthawk
- F-22 Raptor
- F-35 Lightning II