The U.S. military has a reputation as a somewhat secretive organization. But in one respect at least, the Pentagon is one of the most “open” of our government agencies. Every day of the week, rain or shine, the Department of Defense tells U.S. taxpayers what contracts it’s issued, to whom, and for how much — all right out in the open on its website.
So what has the Pentagon been up to this week?
DoD is budgeted to spend about $6.2 billion a week on military hardware, infrastructure projects, and supplies in fiscal 2013. (A further $5.6 billion a week goes to pay the salaries and benefits of U.S. servicemen and servicewomen). Lately, however, the generals have been focusing primarily on belt-tightening — and last week was no exception, with the Pentagon awarding just over $4.04 billion to defense contractors. Among the winners:
Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE:LMT)
The nation’s biggest pure-play defense contractor, Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE:LMT) was one of the week’s big winners, taking an early lead over its defense contractor rivals Monday, when it won an $852 million contract to supply special “tooling and test equipment” to buyers of its sixth low-rate production lot of F-35 fighter jets. Buyers include the U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, and international partners the United Kingdom and Italy.
Once these planes are delivered, Italy will become the third international country to have an F-35 in its air force — the first of 90 that the country is expected to buy. To date, only the U.S. military, and those of the U.K. and Netherlands, have received F-35s.
Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Raytheon Company (NYSE:RTN)
Defense contractor Raytheon Company (NYSE:RTN) won a big contract of its own Monday — a $200 million deal to sell hundreds of AIM-9X Sidewinder Block II short-range air-to-air missiles. Buyers under this contract include the U.S. Navy and Air Force, but also the militaries of Morocco, Malaysia, Kuwait, and Oman. On a side note, this contract also tasked Raytheon Company (NYSE:RTN) with selling the Royal Saudi Air Force a pair of Special Air Training Missiles — live missiles that carry a telemetry package instead of a warhead, and are used for test firings.
Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC)
Defense contractor Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) won perhaps the most interesting contract award of the week, when the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — DARPA — allocated an additional $10 million to fund Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC)’s work on developing critical device and integration technologies necessary to manufacture compact, high-performance electronic circuits that operate at a center frequency of 1.03 THz.
DARPA believes that this transmission frequency in particular — the sub-millimeter radiation range of 1.03 terahertz — will be useful in developing “advanced communication and sensor systems” such as new radar systems that can see through clouds “as effectively as today’s infrared (IR) sensors operate in clear weather.”
