Contracting giants Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, major players in the Pentagon’s nuclear modernization program, are set to report earnings this week.
Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed, scheduled to report its third-quarter earnings Tuesday, is one of two contractors (with Raytheon) developing technology for a next-generation air-launched nuclear-tipped cruise missile known as the Long-Range Standoff weapon. Lockheed’s contract, awarded in August, is worth about $900 million.
Northrop Grumman, of Falls Church, Va., is set to report earnings Wednesday. In August, the company got a three-year contract worth just under $330 million to mature systems for a next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile known as the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent.
Lockheed last year shifted its Information Systems and Global Solutions business to Leidos, which reduced the company’s role on the Department of Energy’s (DOE) nuclear weapons complex. The transaction made Leidos the lead partner on Mission Support Alliance: the primary support contractor on DOE’s Hanford Site in Washington State.
However, Leidos lost a chance to manage the agency’s Nevada National Security Site. When Leidos acquired Lockheed’s Information Systems and Global Solutions business, it also inherited Nevada Site Science Support and Technologies Corp.: a bidder for the Nevada site prime contract that initially won the competition. However, DOE revoked the award in August 2016 upon learning of the change of ownership. The department in May awarded the contract, worth up to $5 billion over 10 years, to a partnership of Honeywell, Jacobs Engineering, and Stoller Newport News Nuclear.
Northop, meanwhile, has had mixed luck recently with the DOE complex. It is is acquiring Orbital ATK of Dulles, Va., which will make the company part of Consolidated Nuclear Security: the management team for the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee and the Pantex Plant in Texas. But it was one of the partners in the outgoing management team for the Nevada National Security Site.
