Lockheed Martin announced today that Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) and IBM Business Consulting Services have joined the GOES-R Lockheed Martin Team in competition for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-R) program.

"The knowledge and technologies that SAIC and IBM bring to the team are invaluable and are important essentials to meet NOAA's needs," said Wes Colburn, vice president, Earth Observing Systems, GOES-R program manager, Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company. "These relationships are a prime example of our focus on developing and delivering the best science and technologies in addition to leveraging our 45-year heritage of Earth environmental missions to provide NOAA with an unmatched solution to GOES-R."

SAIC's Earth Sciences Operation brings strong scientific programming and technology expertise to the development of calibration algorithms, and characterization and modeling of the suite of sensors, in addition to environmental data analysis and modeling. SAIC's contribution will enhance environmental forecasting abilities that support evolving needs of the environmental community, the U.S. government and society at large.

IBM is an industry leader in the design and development of service- oriented architectures (SOA) and the related software products to model, assemble, deploy and manage an SOA. IBM Business Consulting Services will support Lockheed Martin in the migration of the current GOES infrastructure into a service-oriented, open architecture design to enhance the flexibility and responsiveness to end-users' diverse needs.

The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) program is a key element of NOAA's operations. The GOES-R series will comprise improved spacecraft and instrument technologies, with faster ground processing for new and advanced products that will lead to significant economic benefits for the nation in the areas of weather and water, climate, ecosystems monitoring and management, and commerce and transportation.

GOES-R will be the cornerstone of the Global Earth Observations System of Systems (GEOSS), an international partnership of over 60 countries leading a worldwide effort to build a 'system of systems' consisting of existing and future Earth-observation systems (space, air, ground, water).

The Lockheed Martin GOES-R team brings together the best assets available across the company and throughout industry and academia, each providing additional domain expertise and key enabling technologies. In addition to SAIC and IBM, the team members include ARES Corporation, ASRC Aerospace Corporation, Emergent Space Technologies, Global Science & Technology, Honeywell, Intelsat, ItriCorp, Kamel Engineering Services (KES), The Pennsylvania State University and RS Information Systems (RSIS).

Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin employs about 135,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. The corporation reported 2005 sales of $37.2 billion.

  Media Contact:
  Gary Napier
  Lockheed Martin Space Systems
  (303) 971-4012
  gary.p.napier@lmco.com

  For additional information, visit:
  http://www.lockheedmartin.com/
  http://www.saic.com/
  http://www.ibm.com/services

SOURCE: Lockheed Martin