{"id":660288,"date":"2026-05-23T10:42:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T10:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/660288\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T10:42:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T10:42:16","slug":"lockheed-breaks-ground-on-new-thaad-interceptor-plant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/660288\/","title":{"rendered":"Lockheed breaks ground on new THAAD interceptor plant"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 Lockheed Martin<\/a> on Thursday broke ground on a new 87,000 square foot production facility in Alabama, an investment that lays the groundwork for the company to quadruple the rate of THAAD<\/a> interceptor production.<\/p>\n

The newly christened, and notably-named<\/a>, \u201cBuilding 47\u201d in Troy, Ala., nearly doubles the current production space for THAAD interceptors, and will also house future work on the Next Generation Interceptor program, the company stated.<\/p>\n

During the groundbreaking ceremony, Lockheed CEO Jim Taiclet<\/a> said the new facility was an example of \u201c[Lockheed\u2019s] willingness to make formal major investments before we have a contract.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Trump administration has made boosting munitions stockpiles a critical priority following the war in Ukraine and ongoing conflict with Iran. Pentagon leaders hope to push defense contractors to invest company funds to stand up new production facilities or upgrade older ones by cementing multiyear production deals that would give companies more certainty that demand for weapons will be sustained years into the future.<\/p>\n

So far, the department has signed multiyear framework agreements with Lockheed for THAAD interceptors<\/a> and\u00a0the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM),<\/a> and inked an $4.7 billion undefinitized contract<\/a> for the Patriot missile defense system\u2019s \u00a0PAC-3 missiles. However,\u00a0those deals \u2014 and others that include multiyear agreements for Tomahawk missiles<\/a> and key components \u2014 will only be made final after Congress passes legislation approving that funding, expected as part of the fiscal 2027 budget process.<\/p>\n

RELATED: The Pentagon wants a 188 percent bump for missile procurement. Can industry deliver? <\/a><\/p>\n

Lockheed intends to spend between $8 billion and $9 billion through 2030 on new or modernized facilities for expanded munitions production, Taiclet said. That includes about $1.25 billion already spent on projects that a new Munitions Acceleration Center in Camden, Ark. About $900 million to $1.1 billion will be spent on the Troy site.<\/p>\n

The company will also add 4,500 jobs across the country tied to the munitions ramp up, Taiclet said.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday we are demonstrating execution. These aren\u2019t just ideas or papers going back and forth,\u201d he said at the groundbreaking. \u201cWe know it\u2019s going to be good, and we know it\u2019s going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taiclet added that he looks forward to future agreements to accelerate production for defense technologies that include \u201cnot just missiles.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe department\u2019s thinking broadly, so are we, and I think we\u2019re going to be doing a lot more groundbreakings, figuratively, and also in real time, too,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Asked by Breaking Defense during a later news conference about ongoing discussions on future agreements, both Taiclet and Michael Duffey, the Pentagon\u2019s acquisition czar, declined to lay out specifics.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere there\u2019s applicability of a model like this outside [munitions] that creates the speed and volume that we need to equip the warfighter, we\u2019re very open to considering those opportunities,\u201d Duffey said.<\/p>\n

Taiclet added that Lockheed has submitted a proposal to produce \u201cradar systems\u201d on a multiyear basis, but did not provide further details.<\/p>\n

There are also efforts to incorporate the lower tiers of the supply chain in the munitions multiyear production deals. Lockheed and the Pentagon are currently creating \u201cheads of agreement\u201d for major suppliers that lay out the same economic incentives that the framework agreements provide the defense primes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the large suppliers complete those agreements, they\u2019ll be under the same economic and commercial framework as we are at Lockheed Martin as the OEM for Patriot and THAAD,\u201d Taiclet said, adding that not all agreements have been completed. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 Lockheed Martin on Thursday broke ground on a new 87,000 square foot production facility in Alabama,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":660289,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[19472,11827,28,25807,25808,24831,289012,289013,5472,222689],"class_list":["post-660288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-air-force","tag-army","tag-business","tag-business-industry","tag-james-taiclet","tag-lockheed-martin","tag-michael-duffey","tag-munitions","tag-pentagon","tag-thaad"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=660288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}