Overview
- MAB-5, which opened Monday, is an 88,000-square-foot Missile Assembly Building in Courtland, Alabama built to produce Lockheed’s Next Generation Interceptor for the Missile Defense Agency.
- The factory consolidates digital manufacturing tools, a 'digital twin' model, automation, and data-driven workflows to reduce handling, keep tighter tolerances, and raise repeatable output.
- Lockheed and Department of Defense officials say NGI technologies are moving from design into production as core subsystems — sensors, software, propulsion and engagement capability — show system-level performance ahead of Critical Design Review.
- The Courtland site joins a complementary Troy, Alabama center and a wider Lockheed plan that the company says will involve multibillion-dollar investments and hundreds of U.S. suppliers to ease bottlenecks and grow skilled jobs in North Alabama.
- Actual long-term interceptor production rates will depend on pending multiyear procurement agreements and Congressional budget approvals tied to FY2027, which are needed to convert factory capacity into sustained output.