Lockheed opens new hypersonic strike production facility

Lockheed Martin announced this week it has opened a new facility in Courtland, AL dedicated to hypersonic strike missile production.

The new facility "represents Lockheed Martin's commitment to establishing northern Alabama as the base of the company's hypersonic strike programs," the company said in a statement. "The 65,000-square-foot Hypersonic Missile Assembly Building 4 (MAB 4) is built on the digital foundation that Lockheed Martin has prioritized through mission-driven transformation efforts across the enterprise to meet customer needs with speed and agility while bolstering U.S. manufacturing capability."

The new building is the second Conventional Prompt Strike production facility onsite, according to Lockheed, and "integrates critical digital transformation advancements such as robotic thermal protection application capabilities, smart torque tools and mixed-reality capabilities for training and virtual inspections. The machines in this facility also will connect to the company's Intelligent Factory Framework early next year, which digitally links production facilities and assets across the Lockheed Martin enterprise to help enable unprecedented insights into the health, status and optimization of operations."

The Courtland site houses one of four transformational manufacturing facilities the company says it is opening in the United States within one year.