AEROSPACE UPDATE
August 2009
McIlvaine Company
Lockheed Martin Expansion Includes New Cleanroom
Lockheed Martin broke ground on two new facilities at its Space Systems Company operations in Newtown, Pennsylvania, that will support spacecraft programs for government and commercial customers.
A 17,000-square-foot addition will be constructed at the west end of the facility’s Product Team Building (PTB) to expand Lockheed Martin’s satellite manufacturing capability. The addition will house a near-field antenna range, a new passive inter-modulation (PIM) chamber, and a new antenna assembly cleanroom. In addition, product holding and fixture preparation areas are planned.
A 15,000-square-foot multi-purpose conference center will facilitate large-scale meetings such as design reviews, demonstration initiatives and customer events.
Both projects will be certified under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System. LEED provides standards for environmentally sustainable construction, and LEED certified buildings typically use resources more efficiently when compared to conventional buildings. The estimated cost of the projects is $24 million.
Lockheed Martin’s Newtown facility employs about 1200 people and serves as the headquarters for Lockheed Martin Commercial Space Systems (LMCSS) and the next-generation Global Positioning System (GPS) III and Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite R-Series (GOES-R) programs. LMCSS has delivered 37 communications satellites based on the A2100 platform to customers world-wide. The GPS III and GOES-R programs were awarded to Lockheed Martin in May 2008 and July 2009 respectively.
The facility also builds components for Lockheed Martin government programs such as the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) system, which will provide global, highly secure, protected, survivable communications for war fighters operating on ground, sea and air platforms, and the Mobile User Objective System (MUOS), which will greatly expand the capacity of UHF communications and aid the military as it increasingly relies on more agile and mobile forces.
The Newtown facility is part of Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company (LMSSC), a major operating unit of Lockheed Martin Corporation. LMSSC designs and develops, tests, manufactures and operates a full spectrum of advanced-technology systems for national security and military, civil government and commercial customers. Chief products include human space flight systems; a full range of remote sensing, navigation, meteorological and communications satellites and instruments; space observatories and interplanetary spacecraft; laser radar; ballistic missiles; missile defense systems; and nanotechnology research and development.
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