LOCKHEED MARTIN CORPORATION

major American aerospace company producing military aircraft, missiles, space satellites, space-launch systems, information and technology services, and electronic products. It was created in 1995 when the Lockheed Corporation and the Martin Marietta Corporation, the second and third largest defense contractors in the United States at that time, merged. It is headquartered in Bethesda, Md. The Lockheed Corporation originated with a company formed in 1916 in Santa Barbara, Calif., by Allan Loughead (he later changed his name's spelling to match its pronunciation) and his brother Malcolm. They dissolved the venture a few years later, but in 1926 Allan started up the Lockheed Aircraft Company in Hollywood. With the designer John Northrop, he built the Vega, a streamlined plywood monoplane with a monocoque fuselage that set many speed and endurance records. In 1929 the firm was bought by the Detroit Aircraft Corporation, which went bankrupt in 1932. That same year, investors including the bankers Robert and Courtland Gross bought Lockheed's assets. They revived the company's fortunes during the Great Depression with the Electra, a twin-engined, all-metal airliner. A Lockheed P-38 Lightning During World War II, Lockheed began a long association with the U.S. military by producing the P-38 Lightning fighter-bomber (see photograph). Subsequently the company formed a top-secret military aircraft division, Advanced Development Projects (ADP), known as the Skunk Works. Headed by designer Clarence L. Kelly Johnson, ADP produced the F-104 Starfighter, the U-2 spy plane, and the SR-71 Blackbird spy plane. Lockheed also built antisubmarine aircraft and such transports as the turboprop-driven C-130 Hercules and the huge jet-powered C-5 Galaxy. After World War II Lockheed also reentered civilian aviation with several airliners, notably the Constellation and the Super Constellation, but its production of the L-1011 TriStar, first flown in 1970, was troubled by the bankruptcy of the plane's engine manufacturer, Rolls-Royce Ltd. Losses on these projects, combined with cost overruns on the C-5 and the drying up of military contracts in the latter stage of the Vietnam War, placed Lockheed in such financial straits that in 1971 it avoided bankruptcy only with loan guarantees from the federal government. This financial arrangement drew intense criticism amid disclosures that the company had bribed foreign officials to win contracts abroad. In the 1980s the F-117A Stealth fighter, developed by ADP, went into service. Lockheed Missiles & Space, Inc., the prime contractor for the Agena space rocket and the Polaris and Poseidon submarine-launched ballistic missiles, went on to produce the Trident missile as well. Other divisions of Lockheed produced military communications satellites and missile-tracking systems. The Martin Company, incorporated in 1928, succeeded the Glenn L. Martin Company, which was organized in 1917. Its major businesses were the design, development, and production of missiles and electronic systems for the U.S. government and of nucleonics for the Atomic Energy Commission. In 1961 The Martin Company merged with American-Marietta Company (incorporated 1930), which had been formed as American Asphalt Paint Company in 1913 and whose primary products included aggregates, chemicals, aluminum, and cement. Beginning in the 1980s Martin Marietta concentrated mostly on its aerospace and defense operations. It was a principal contractor for the space-shuttle program, manufacturing the Titan space-launch vehicles. The company also was involved in the MX missile program and in the production of Patriot and Pershing missiles.