In a ceremony heralding the historic
success of America’s most powerful rocket system, Lockheed
Martin is shipping the last of its venerable Titan IV launch vehicles
from the company’s Denver, Colo., facilities to launch sites at
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., and Vandenberg Air Force Base,
Calif. With over a thousand of its employees and representatives from
the U.S. Dept. of Defense and the U.S. Air Force, the company
celebrated the hallmark success of the United States’ most
powerful expendable launch vehicle system and is preparing to launch
the final Titan II and Titan IV missions. The last Titan IV mission is
scheduled to boost a classified payload for the U.S. Air Force in
2003.

The Titan launch system is designed and produced by Lockheed Martin at
its facilities near Denver, Colo., and began as the Titan
Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), which first launched in
February 1959. During the more than 40 years and over 350 Titan
launches since that first flight, Titan has become one of Lockheed
Martin’s most recognizable programs and it provides the U.S Air
Force’s most important launch capability to boost critical
national security payloads. Since its inception, the Titan I has
evolved to the Titan II ICBM, the Titan III space launch vehicle and
ultimately the Titan IV, which today is the nation’s most
powerful unmanned launch system.

“It is almost impossible to put into words the sense of pride
that each one of us feels about the Titan program, what it has meant
to all of us at Lockheed Martin, and the critical role it continues to
serve for the U.S Air Force and our nation,”said G. Thomas
Marsh, president and general manager of Lockheed Martin Space Systems
– Astronautics Operations. “In a way, it is sad to see this
amazing rocket system approach the final phase of its service, but it
is extremely gratifying to know that many of its capabilities have
been incorporated into our next-generation launch vehicle – the Atlas
V. And there is no question in my mind that the Atlas will continue to
be America’s most successful launch vehicle for the
future.”

The production line is completed, but Titan still has several critical
missions remaining to launch. The teams at Cape Canaveral and
Vandenberg have five more Titan IVs and three more Titan II vehicles
to launch before the last mission is flown in 2003. Every one of these
launches will carry a critical national security mission.

“Today’s event represents the end of an era. But that does not mean it
is the end of the extraordinary relationship we have with the Lockheed
Martin team,”said Col. Mike Dunn, director of launch programs
for the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center. “We
still have missions to complete and other programs to think about. The
bottom line is, when it comes down to it, Lockheed Martin has
performed a mission critical service for the war fighter in the field
and every American citizen. Our friends at Lockheed Martin Space
Systems will undoubtedly be involved in supporting those missions in
the future. They have certainly lived up to the motto that mission
success is our number one priority.”

In addition to launching important national security payloads such as
the Milstar satellite system and other reconnaissance satellites for
the U.S. Air Force and Dept. of Defense, Titan also has launched some
of the nation’s most historic and history-changing missions such
as the Gemini manned missions for NASA in the 1960s, the Viking
missions which landed successfully on Mars in the mid-1970s, and the
Voyager I and II spacecraft which were launched aboard Titan in 1977.

Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, headquartered in Denver, Colo.,
is one of the major operating units of Lockheed Martin Corporation.
Space Systems designs, develops, tests, manufactures and operates a
variety of advanced technology systems for military, civil and
commercial customers. Chief products include a full-range of space
launch systems, ground systems, remote sensing and communications
satellites for commercial and government customers, advanced space
observatories and interplanetary spacecraft, fleet ballistic missiles
and missile defense systems.

Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin is a highly
diversified global enterprise principally engaged in the research,
design, development, manufacture and integration of
advanced-technology systems, products and services. The
Corporation’s core businesses span space and telecommunications,
electronics, information and services, aeronautics, energy and systems
integration. Lockheed Martin had 2001 sales surpassing $24 billion.

Contact: Joan Underwood, Lockheed Martin

Office: (303)971-7398 Mobile: 303-594-7073

Pager: (800)621-8063

joan.b.underwood@lmco.com