Lockheed Martin has announced the opening of an advanced production facility in Courtland, Alabama, which will focus on hypersonic strike production.
The 65,000-square-foot facility is called the Hypersonic Missile Assembly Building 4 (MAB 4) and capitalizes on critical digital factory capabilities to deliver what the company described as new “21st-century warfare capabilities.”
The second Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) production facility onsite, this location integrates critical digital transformation advancements such as robotic thermal protection application capabilities, smart torque tools and mixed-reality capabilities for training and virtual inspections. The machines in this facility also will connect to the company’s Intelligent Factory Framework early next year, which digitally links production facilities and assets across the Lockheed Martin enterprise to help enable unprecedented insights into the health, status and optimization of operations.
“Lockheed Martin has manufactured defense systems in Courtland since 1994, providing increasingly sophisticated capabilities to protect our nation, allies, and security partners,” said Sarah Hiza, vice president and general manager of Strategic and Missile Defense Systems at Lockheed Martin Space. “Our long-time partnerships with Alabama, the Department of Defense, and academic researchers have paved the way to develop the most advanced hypersonic strike capabilities using the best-of-the-best digital technologies from across our enterprise.”
The Courtland site houses one of four transformational manufacturing facilities Lockheed Martin is opening in the United States within one year.
The programs produced at this site will support several US military branches and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, including CPS, Long Range Hypersonic Weapon and the Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon.
“Hypersonic strike capabilities are critical to combat evolving threats, giving our warfighters the tools they need to complete complex missions,” said Jay Pitman, vice president of Air Dominance and Strike Weapons at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control. “The talented teams who work at these new advanced strike production facilities are delivering essential missile and hypersonic vehicle technologies in support of the US National Defense Strategy.”
