Lockheed Martin has been awarded a $150 million contract from the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) to produce Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) Weapon System launchers and fire control and communications equipment for the U.S. Army.

The contract includes 12 launchers, two fire control and communications units, and associated support equipment. This contract will provide six launchers for THAAD Battery 5 and an additional three launchers each to Batteries 1 and 2. These deliveries will bring all Batteries to the standard six launcher configuration.

Ground hardware from this award will be delivered to Fort Bliss, Texas. A production contract for the first two Batteries was awarded to Lockheed Martin in late 2006. Contracts for Batteries 3 and 4 were awarded in 2011.

"THAAD brings advanced hit-to-kill technology to the warfighter combined with ease of operation designed into the system," said Mat Joyce, Lockheed Martin's vice president and program manager for the THAAD Weapon System.

"Our focus remains squarely on program execution so we can meet the delivery needs of our U.S. Army customer."

Final assembly, integration and testing of production equipment will take place at Lockheed Martin's award-winning manufacturing facility in Camden, Ark. Delivery of equipment for Battery 5 will be completed by 2015. This new production award will be instrumental in sustaining personnel at the Camden facility.

Since 2005, the THAAD program has successfully completed 12 flight tests, with nine-for-nine intercepts.

The latest mission was an operational test conducted at the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii, by THAAD soldiers from Alpha-4 (A-4), 11th Air Defense Artillery Imperial Brigade of the 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command.

During that mission, two THAAD interceptors destroyed two different targets.

THAAD is the only missile defense system with the operational flexibility to intercept in both the endo- and exo-atmospheres to provide versatile capability to the warfighter. A key element of the nation's Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS), THAAD is a Missile Defense Agency program, with the program office located in Huntsville, Ala.

The agency is developing the BMDS to defend the United States, its deployed forces and allies against short and medium range ballistic missiles in the terminal phase of flight.