Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin took its current shape in 1995, when Lockheed Corporation merged with Martin Marietta to form the largest defense contractor in the world by revenue, a position it has held for most of the three decades since. The company, headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland and trading on the NYSE as LMT, now organizes itself into four segments that each carry their own history and, in some cases, their own separate identity. Aeronautics is the most publicly recognized, built around the F-35 Lightning II, the largest single defense program in the world by cost, along with the older F-22 Raptor air superiority fighter, the F-16 Fighting Falcon still in production for export customers, and the C-130 Hercules transport that has been in continuous production longer than almost any aircraft in history. The segment also runs Skunk Works, Lockheed's storied advanced development unit responsible for the U-2, SR-71, and F-117 in earlier decades and now working on classified and hypersonic programs. Missiles and Fire Control makes precision weapons and air and missile defense systems.

It builds the PAC-3 family of Patriot interceptors and the THAAD system for exoatmospheric and terminal missile defense, the HIMARS rocket launcher and its GMLRS and ATACMS munitions that gained wide attention supplying Ukraine, the JASSM and LRASM cruise missile family, and the Javelin anti-tank missile it co-produces with RTX. The segment also has a smaller commercial line supplying fire-control and safety systems to the nuclear power industry. Rotary and Mission Systems combines Sikorsky, acquired in 2015, with Lockheed's radar, naval combat systems, and undersea businesses. Sikorsky builds the UH-60 Black Hawk utility helicopter, the CH-53K King Stallion heavy lifter, and the presidential VH-92 fleet. The same segment runs the Aegis Combat System, the naval air and missile defense backbone fitted to US and allied cruisers and destroyers, along with the MK 41 Vertical Launching System used across dozens of navies, sonar and undersea warfare systems, and battle management and radar work supporting missile defense and homeland air defense missions.

Space builds satellites and spacecraft across military, civil, and commercial customers: GPS III navigation satellites, the Space Based Infrared System and Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared missile-warning satellites, the Advanced Extremely High Frequency communications constellation, and NASA's Orion crew capsule for the Artemis Moon program. The segment also builds the Trident II D5 submarine-launched ballistic missile, the sea-based leg of the US and UK nuclear deterrent, tying Lockheed into strategic weapons work alongside its conventional and space businesses. Roughly three-quarters of Lockheed's revenue traces back to the US government, split between the Defense Department, NASA, and other civil agencies, with the remainder coming from foreign military sales, mostly F-35 and PAC-3 exports to NATO and Indo-Pacific allies. With more than 114,000 employees, Lockheed is not just the largest defense contractor in the US, it is close to the largest in the world by most measures, and its programs, the F-35 above all, shape procurement decisions and industrial-base debates across dozens of allied air forces at once.