Mary-Louise Hoffman
Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson hosted Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during his visit Thursday at a company site in Sunnyvale, California.
MBS toured the facility where Lockheed currently builds a pair of communications satellites for operator Arabsat and the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, the company said Friday.
“He also met the Saudi engineers who have worked side-by-side with our Lockheed Martin engineers to learn satellite assembly, integration, and test skills,” said Hewson, a 2018 Wash100 recipient.
“Together, we celebrated what these efforts will mean for building Saudi Arabia’s future space industry and for increasing economic opportunity and job creation throughout the Kingdom.”
Lockheed was awarded a contract in 2015 to build Arabsat-6A and Hellas-Sat-4/SaudiGeoSat-1 satellites based on the LM 2100 platform to facilitate delivery of telecommunications services to government and commercial users across the Middle East, Africa and Europe.
Arabsat and KACST are scheduled to receive both satellites later this year.
The Bethesda, Maryland-based company also supports the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 through training initiatives meant to help Saudi Arabia sustain its aerospace and defense industry.
