Today Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) debuted a new family of satellite buses that form the core of nearly every space mission. From nanosats to high-powered satellites, the versatile lineup incorporates dozens of major enhancements and hundreds of common components that speed production and reduce cost. The company announced the lineup at the Air Force Association Air, Space & Cyber Conference.
“We’ve invested $300 million in revamping our satellite solutions from top to bottom, applying what we learned from hundreds of small sat and geostationary missions,” said Rick Ambrose, Lockheed Martin Space Systems executive vice president. “We now have one family for every mission fully integrated with our end-to-end capabilities in ground stations, payloads and software applications. As defense, scientific and commercial missions change and evolve, we’ll be ready with proven, powerful and flexible technology to meet tomorrow’s demands.”
The new family of satellite buses includes:
· LM 50TM Series: These flexible nanosats now have a wider range of size and power options. Plus, they now benefit from the experience and technology of Terran Orbital.
· LM 400TM Series: The upgraded version of the company’s legacy small sat bus packs more propulsion than other buses its size and can fly in low Earth orbit, geostationary or even interplanetary. Production efficiencies like 3-D printing speed its order-to-delivery timeline to as little as 24 months.
· LM 1000TM Series: Lockheed Martin’s newest bus for mid-size missions, the LM 1000 features the most commonality with LM 2100 to reduce cost and host higher-power payloads, such as remote sensing missions. Like the LM 400, LM 1000 is built for multiple orbits or interplanetary missions.
· LM 2100TM Series: The modernized A2100Ò bus has a new name and a host of new enhancements. The powerful spacecraft has 26 improvements that add more power and flexibility to a proven platform.
“As technology evolves, customers have told us they want faster production cycles and more versatility for their dollar, and we’re listening,” said Kay Sears, vice president of strategy and business development for Lockheed Martin Space Systems. “We’re transforming the way we design, engineer and produce satellites to deliver the same performance and precision our customers expect from Lockheed Martin, but faster and at a lower price.”
For the first time, all of Lockheed Martin’s satellites will share common components, and more than 280 have been identified. The multi-year effort to identify common systems aims to reduce cost, shorten design time and increase reliability with trusted components. Lockheed Martin’s software support systems also enhance flexibility and make each bus rapidly reconfigurable. While configurations may vary in each series, the core elements of each bus will retain commonality with other satellites, including missions in military, civil and commercial markets.
Learn more about the new family of solutions at www.lockheedmartin.com/satellites.
About Lockheed Martin
Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace company that employs approximately 97,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services.
