PHILADELPHIA, USA (28 July 2014) - AMEC, the international engineering and project management company, announces today the award of a contract by Lockheed Martin to design and build facilities for the U.S. Space Fence program.

The new advanced ground-based radar system will enhance the way the U.S. Air Force identifies and tracks more than 200,000 orbiting objects in space and increase the ability to prevent space-based collisions.

Under the contract, AMEC will deliver facilities and infrastructure for an advanced S-Band phased array radar for the Space Fence program including radar array buildings, mechanical buildings, operations buildings, power generation plants, and site work. Construction of the new Space Fence system on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands is scheduled to begin in early 2015.

The value of AMEC's contract has not been announced.

"AMEC is proud to be part of the team that will transform space situational awareness," said Charles Mouzannar, Executive Vice President of AMEC's Construction & Specialty Consulting Group. "We look forward to deploying our engineering and construction resources from across the globe to work seamlessly with the Lockheed Martin team."

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Media Contacts:
Lauren Gallagher: +1 (602) 757-3211; lauren.gallagher@amec.com
Frank Stokes: +44 (0)1452 876975; frank.stokes@amec.com

Notes to editors:

AMEC (LSE: AMEC) is a focused supplier of consultancy, engineering and project management services to its customers in the world's oil and gas, mining, clean energy, environment and infrastructure markets. With annual revenues of some £4 billion (US $6.2 billion), AMEC designs, delivers and maintains strategic and complex assets and employs around 27,000 people in about 40 countries worldwide. See www.amec.com.

Space Fence will use S-band (part of the microwave band of the electromagnetic spectrum) ground-based radars to provide the Air Force with uncued detection, tracking and accurate measurement of space objects, primarily in low-earth orbit. The geographic separation and the higher wave frequency of the new Space Fence radars will allow for the detection of much smaller microsatellites and debris than current systems.

Space Fence will replace the existing Air Force Space Surveillance System, or VHF Fence, which has been in service since the early 1960s and the new system's initial operational capability is scheduled for 2017. An interesting video that describe the project is here: http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/space-fence.html

The contract value awarded to Lockheed Martin by the U.S. Government is greater than US$910 million.

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