The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) awarded Lockheed Martin [LMT] a $946 million undefinitized contract action for the first part of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) sale to Saudi Arabia.

The award, announced Monday, is a non-competitive hybrid contract line item numbers type award under the $15 billion Foreign Military Sale (FMS) of THAAD.

A Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery fires an interceptor missile. Photo: Lockheed Martin.

The State Department approved the THAAD sale in 2017. The original Saudi request included 44 THAAD launchers, 360 interceptor missiles, 16 fire control and communications mobile tactical station groups, and seven Raytheon [RTN] AN/TPY-2 radars (Defense Daily, Oct. 6, 2017).

The THAAD sale is part of the larger $110 billion defense sale announced during President Trump’s trip to Saudi Arabia in May 2019 (Defense Daily, May 19, 2017).

Under this initial award, Lockheed Martin will provide THAAD Phase I long lead items, obsolescence, tooling and test equipment, initial training development, exportability, and early engineering development.

The award’s work period runs through Oct. 31, 2026.

In October, Bruce Tanner, Lockheed Martin’s chief financial officer, said during a company analyst call that the Saudi THAAD initial operating capability is planned for about 2023 (Defense Daily, Oct. 23, 2018).