Lockheed wins Aegis contract

Lockheed Martin Corp. will produce three Aegis Weapon Systems for the Navy under a $208.7 million contract, company officials said.

The weapon systems will equip the next three Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, said officials at the Bethesda Md., company.

"Aegis' open architecture gives the Navy greater flexibility to continue to adapt the Aegis Weapon System for new and more complex missions ? and to do it faster and at lower cost," said Orlando Carvalho, vice president of Lockheed's Maritime Systems & Sensors' Surface Systems business line.

The weapons architecture is built using an Open Architecture Computing Environment Category 3 infrastructure. OACE is a set of international standards designed to minimize the requirements for custom software, speed the development of new applications and reduce the cost of technology upgrades and refresh, Lockheed officials said.