On February 14, 2018, aerospace giant Lockheed Martin broke ground on a new 255,000-square-foot facility. According to Frank St. John, executive VP of Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control (MFC), they're calling it the Research & Development II building — they're not much for names at Lockheed.
The $50 million office facility will be located in Orlando, FL and will be home to 500 new jobs. The company also announced plans to hire another 1,300 to its global staff of about 100,000 people worldwide.
The new facility will support the MFC division that designs, manufactures, and supports advanced missile and rocket-based combat systems for both manned and unmanned configurations. Some of Lockheed's clients include NASA, the U.S. Department of Defense, and allied nations.
According to the company, employees at the new location will handle engineering, R&D, and program management specifically focused on millimeter wave radar, electro-optics, advanced materials, image and signal processing, as well as electronic packaging and system integration — all technologies particularly suited to autonomous systems.