ATK, Lockheed teamup for Hellfires missiles

MINNEAPOLIS, Dec. 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- ATK (NYSE: ATK) has
received a contract valued at nearly $3 million to manufacture rocket motors
for the Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) HELLFIRE(R) II missile, the first year of
a proposed five-year agreement between ATK and Lockheed Martin.

The total value of the agreement, if all options are exercised, exceeds
$20 million. Work will be performed in Rocket Center, West Virginia and
Orlando, Florida.
The rocket motors are expected to satisfy the requirements of the U.S.
services as well as allied nations. Production is underway, and deliveries
will begin in 2006.
The sole-source supplier of the HELLFIRE II rocket motors, ATK has
manufactured over 35,000 motors since production began in 1987. In addition,
ATK manufactures the copper liner for the main shaped-charge warhead for the
high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) HELLFIRE, the AGM-114K, as well as the metal
augmented charge (MAC) warhead for the AGM-114N, or "thermobaric" warhead,
which is just starting production.
HELLFIRE can be launched from rotary-wing aircraft, unmanned aerial
vehicles, ground-based tripods, high-mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles
(HUMVEEs) and boats. HELLFIRE is effective against a wide variety of targets,
including tanks, ships, bunkers and buildings; and its precision-strike semi-
active laser guidance minimizes collateral damage.
More than 1,000 HELLFIRE II rounds of all four versions (HEAT, MAC, blast
fragmentation and millimeter-wave Longbow) have been fired successfully in
Afghanistan and Iraq.