ABD Savunma Sanayii Global Defense Companies

What Is Lockheed Martin? Inside the World’s Largest Defense Contractor

In 2024, Lockheed Martin posted $71 billion in revenue, held a record $176 billion backlog, and employed 121,000 people across four continents. No other defense company comes close. Here is what it actually makes — and why it matters.

Company at a Glance

Lockheed Martin Corporation was formed in 1995 when Lockheed and Martin Marietta merged in what was then the largest defense industry consolidation in history. The lineage of the Lockheed half runs back to 1912, when Allan and Malcolm Loughead (later “Lockheed”) built their first aircraft in Santa Barbara, California. The Martin Marietta side traces its roots to the Glenn L. Martin Company, which dates to 1917.

The merger produced a company that today controls roughly one-third of the U.S. government’s prime defense contract spending. Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Lockheed Martin operates major production facilities in Fort Worth (Texas), Marietta (Georgia), Orlando (Florida), Liverpool (New York), and Owego (New York), among dozens of other sites.

Metric	Value (2024)
Revenue	$71.04 billion (+5% YoY)
Net income	$5.34 billion
Backlog	$176 billion (record)
Employees	121,000
CEO	James D. Taiclet
Stock	NYSE: LMT

Four Businesses, One Company

Lockheed Martin is organized into four operating segments. Each would rank among the world’s top twenty defense firms if it stood alone.

Segment	2024 Revenue	Share	Growth
Aeronautics	$28.6B	39%	+4.2%
Rotary and Mission Systems (RMS)	$17.3B	24%	+0.3%
Missiles and Fire Control (MFC)	$12.7B	18%	+13%
Space	$12.5B	18%	+4.4%

The Missiles and Fire Control segment posted the sharpest growth — 13 percent year-over-year — driven by the surge in global demand for PAC-3 interceptors, JASSM cruise missiles, LRASM anti-ship missiles, and GMLRS guided rockets. Ukraine’s war with Russia triggered a continent-wide rearmament cycle that flows directly to Lockheed Martin’s order books.

Product Portfolio

F-35 Lightning II

The F-35 is Lockheed Martin’s defining program — and its biggest single revenue line. The fighter accounted for 26 percent of total company revenue in 2024, and 65 percent of the Aeronautics segment alone. By March 2025, the global fleet had surpassed one million cumulative flight hours. Nearly 1,300 aircraft were in service with 16 allied air forces and naval aviation services.

Three variants serve distinct roles:

F-35A — Conventional takeoff and landing; the standard version for land-based NATO and partner air forces
F-35B — Short takeoff, vertical landing (STOVL); used by the UK Royal Air Force, Royal Navy, Italy, and the U.S. Marine Corps
F-35C — Carrier-based; designed for catapult launch and arrested recovery aboard U.S. Navy supercarriers

Japan is currently the single largest foreign buyer with orders exceeding 140 aircraft. Germany, Finland, Belgium, and Canada all signed new F-35 contracts in recent years as European rearmament accelerated after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

PAC-3 MSE — The Most-Produced Advanced Interceptor on Earth

The PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) is the hit-to-kill interceptor at the heart of the Patriot air and missile defense system. As of late 2024, more than 2,500 PAC-3 MSE missiles had been produced, with 17 partner nations operating or procuring the weapon.

Lockheed Martin is now racing to scale production to meet geopolitical demand. In September 2025, the company received a $9.8 billion U.S. Army production contract. In April 2026, a second $4.7 billion “Accelerated Production” contract followed. The target: reach 2,000 interceptors per year by 2030 — more than three times the roughly 600-per-year rate achieved in recent years.

April 2026 brought another milestone: Lockheed Martin received a U.S. Navy contract to integrate PAC-3 MSE into the Aegis Combat System for the first time in history. The company had self-funded the preliminary integration work — hardware-in-the-loop tests in 2022, SPY-1 radar integration in 2023, and a successful launch from a virtualized Aegis system in May 2024 — before the government contract arrived.

F-22 Raptor

The F-22 Raptor is the U.S. Air Force’s premier air superiority fighter and the only American combat aircraft with no export license. Production concluded in 2011 after 187 aircraft were built — a politically controversial decision that left the fleet smaller than planners had intended. The F-22 continues to fly alongside the F-35, with major structural upgrades keeping it combat-relevant into the 2030s.

C-130J Super Hercules

The C-130 family — first flown in 1954 — remains in production in its modernized C-130J form. The Super Hercules is operated by more than 20 nations and continues to win new contracts due to its combination of short-field capability, range, and availability in special-mission variants (tanker, gunship, maritime patrol). It is the longest continuously produced military aircraft in history.

HIMARS

The M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System entered the global spotlight in 2022 when Ukrainian forces used it to strike Russian logistics and command nodes at long range, degrading Russia’s ability to sustain its offensive. HIMARS fires the GPS-guided GMLRS rocket (70 km range), the ATACMS ballistic missile (up to 300 km), and is being configured for the next-generation Precision Strike Missile (PrSM, 500+ km). Dozens of countries now operate or have ordered HIMARS.

JASSM and LRASM

The AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) and its anti-ship derivative, the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM), give air forces the ability to strike heavily defended targets from standoff distances. Both weapons are critical to U.S. and allied strategy in anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) environments — the scenarios that define competition with China and Russia.

Aegis Combat System

Lockheed Martin holds the Aegis Combat System integration contract for the U.S. Navy and allied navies — Japan, South Korea, Australia, Spain, and Norway all operate Aegis-equipped surface combatants. The April 2026 PAC-3 MSE integration contract will eventually extend Aegis’s hard-kill capability against ballistic missiles and advanced threats, moving from ship-launched SM-3 intercepts to the faster, more agile land-based interceptor.

Sikorsky

Lockheed Martin acquired Sikorsky from United Technologies in 2015 for $9 billion, adding the world’s largest military helicopter portfolio to its lineup. The UH-60 Black Hawk family is the backbone of U.S. Army and 40-plus-nation rotary-wing fleets. The CH-53K King Stallion, the world’s most powerful production helicopter, is now entering service with the U.S. Marine Corps. Sikorsky’s commercial arm, the S-92, is the dominant platform for offshore energy and VIP transport.

Space Systems

The Space segment contributes $12.5 billion in annual revenue. Lockheed Martin builds GPS III satellites for the U.S. Space Force, Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) missile-warning satellites, and the Orion spacecraft for NASA’s Artemis lunar exploration program. The company is also a significant player in classified government space programs.

Major Export Customers

Country	Systems	Status
Japan	F-35A/B, PAC-3, Aegis	Active; largest foreign F-35 buyer
United Kingdom	F-35B, C-130J	Active
Australia	F-35A, C-130J, Aegis	Active
South Korea	F-35A, C-130J, PAC-3	Active
Israel	F-35I Adir	Active; combat use confirmed
Italy	F-35A/B, C-130J, PAC-3	Active
Poland	F-35A, HIMARS, PAC-3	Active; NATO eastern flank
Germany	F-35A	Contract; alongside Eurofighter
Norway	F-35A, Aegis	Active
Netherlands	F-35A	Active
Belgium	F-35A	Active
Finland	F-35A	Deliveries underway
Canada	F-35A	Contract signed
Singapore	F-35B	Active

Turkey and the F-35: A $1.4 Billion Divorce

Turkey’s relationship with Lockheed Martin — and with the F-35 program — stands as one of the most consequential industrial divorces in NATO’s history.

Turkey joined the Joint Strike Fighter program in 2002 as the seventh international partner, committing $175 million to the System Development and Demonstration phase. Over the following decade, Turkish defense firms became deeply embedded in the F-35 supply chain: ten Turkish companies supplied more than 900 parts across the airframe and engine, including 188 components for the F135 engine that Pratt & Whitney’s military engine chief later described as “some of the most critical parts.” The total value of Turkish industrial participation exceeded $1 billion — roughly 6-7 percent of all F-35 production work.

Turkey had ordered at least 30 F-35As under binding contract and planned a total fleet of 100 aircraft. Some $1.4 billion had already been paid toward the purchase.

The break came in July 2019, when Turkey accepted delivery of the Russian-made S-400 Triumf air defense system despite U.S. warnings that the S-400’s radar could collect electromagnetic data on F-35s flying alongside it. Washington formally removed Turkey from the F-35 program under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). Turkey lost its aircraft, its industrial contracts, and its $1.4 billion deposit; the U.S. had to find replacement suppliers for the 188 Turkish-made F135 engine components.

The economic fallout was measured precisely. In April 2021 congressional testimony, Pratt & Whitney’s Matthew Bromberg stated that Turkey’s removal had caused a 3 percent increase in the F135 engine’s unit cost. By that point, 75 percent of the Turkish-supplied parts had been re-qualified with new suppliers.

As of mid-2026, Turkey remains outside the F-35 program. U.S. officials have consistently stated that readmission requires resolution of the S-400 issue — a condition Turkey has not yet met.

Future Programs

Lockheed Martin is competing in the NGAD (Next Generation Air Dominance) program — the U.S. Air Force’s effort to develop a sixth-generation manned combat aircraft to succeed the F-22. The USAF restructured the program in 2024, reopening competition; Lockheed Martin faces Boeing as its primary rival. The outcome will determine whether Lockheed Martin secures the defining manned combat aircraft program of the 2030s.

In hypersonics, Lockheed Martin’s work on the Long Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW, also known as Dark Eagle) and the air-launched Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM) positions the company for what Pentagon officials describe as the most strategically significant weapons category of the coming decade.

The SR-72 concept — a Mach 6 strike/reconnaissance aircraft — remains Lockheed Martin’s most speculative future program. Skunk Works has confirmed basic development work, but no official program of record has been established.

Competitive Strengths and Risks

Strengths

Unmatched scale: $176 billion backlog provides multi-year revenue visibility that no competitor can match
F-35 monopoly: The only fifth-generation multirole fighter available to Western allies creates a structural moat
Missile surge: The global demand shock for air defense interceptors and precision munitions is flowing disproportionately to Lockheed Martin’s MFC segment
Vertical integration: From airframes (Aeronautics) to missiles (MFC) to satellites (Space) to helicopters (Sikorsky/RMS), Lockheed Martin covers the full kill chain

Risks

F-35 concentration: One program generating 26% of revenue creates exposure to cost overruns, software delays, and budgetary politics
NGAD uncertainty: Losing the sixth-generation competition to Boeing would mark the first time Lockheed Martin has not produced the Air Force’s primary air superiority fighter since the 1970s
Budget politics: Shifts in U.S. defense spending priorities can cascade through a company so dependent on government contracts

Frequently Asked Questions

How many F-35s have been delivered?

Nearly 1,300 F-35s were in service globally as of early 2025, operated by 16 allied air forces and naval aviation services.

Why was Turkey removed from the F-35 program?

Turkey accepted delivery of Russia’s S-400 air defense system in July 2019, prompting the United States to remove it from the F-35 program under CAATSA legislation. Turkey had paid $1.4 billion toward its planned F-35 purchase.