The Missile Defence Agency (MDA) selected Lockheed Martin to deliver the Next Generation Interceptor (NGI) to intercept ballistic missiles. NGI is a component of the Ground-based Midcourse Defence (GMD) system that will provide an interceptor to protect the U.S. against limited long-range ballistic missile threats. In 2019, MDA announced that the NGI competition would replace the outdated ballistic missile defence interceptor.
In March 2021, the MDA selected Lockheed Martin to compete in the development phase of the NGI purchase programme. The MDA approved Lockheed Martin's NGI System Requirements Review (SRR) in October 2021, six months after the initial contract was awarded.
Lockheed Martin announced in August 2022 that the NGI programme team had validated prototype communications technology for in-flight situational awareness and would release NGI's initial flight software package later that same year. A year later, in August 2023, a series of subsystem Preliminary Design Reviews (PDR) verified the design for all components of our NGI solution.
On September 29, 2023, the NGI programme completed an All Up Round PDR in collaboration with the MDA, which evaluated the program's readiness and maturity to move forward into the detailed design phase.
In November 2023, the company established a $16.5 million engineering facility in North Alabama to handle NGI development, testing, and system integration.
Lockheed Martin accomplished Knowledge Point 1 in November 2023, indicating maturation across essential technologies and manufacturing readiness and moving the programme onto the product development phase.
