Lockheed Martin Space

🔎 At a glance

Company Name: Lockheed Martin Space
Location: King of Prussia, PA
Parent Company: Lockheed Martin Corporation, formed in 1995 through the merger of Lockheed Corporation and Martin Marietta (predecessor companies date to 1912)
Shop Type: Aerospace & defense manufacturer — national security space prime contractor
Industries Served: National security space, NASA space exploration, missile warning, satellite navigation & communications
Production Style: Precision CNC machining from prototype through full-rate production on mission-critical hardware
Machining Capabilities: 3-, 4-, and 5-axis CNC milling, mill-turn, and horizontal/vertical machining centers
Company Size: 23,000+ employees across Lockheed Martin's Space business area; $12.5 billion in FY2024 sales

🏭 About Lockheed Martin Space

Lockheed Martin Space is the space business area of Lockheed Martin Corporation, one of the world's largest aerospace and defense companies. Space traces its roots to the original Lockheed Corporation and Martin Marietta, which merged in 1995 and each carried decades of space and missile heritage into the combined company. Today, the Space business area reports $12.5 billion in annual sales and employs more than 23,000 people across 190+ locations worldwide, including a King of Prussia, Pennsylvania site that machines precision hardware for the company's space and national security programs.

The programs Space builds are among the most recognizable in the industry: Orion, the spacecraft carrying NASA astronauts back to the Moon and eventually toward Mars; GPS III and GPS IIIF, the next generation of satellites providing positioning and navigation for the U.S. military and for daily life around the world; GeoXO, the coming generation of weather and Earth-observation satellites; SBIRS and Next Gen OPIR, the nation's missile warning constellations; and Lucy, a deep-space spacecraft exploring the Trojan asteroids near Jupiter. Its customers include NASA, the U.S. Space Force, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the Missile Defense Agency.

Machinists at the King of Prussia facility work from engineering drawings and CAD data to produce the precision components that go into this hardware, supporting production from early prototypes through full-rate manufacturing — demanding, mission-critical work backed by the scale and stability of one of the largest employers in aerospace and defense.

👍 Why you'll like working here

Working at Lockheed Martin Space means machining parts that support programs like Orion, GPS III, and the nation's missile warning satellites — work with a mission behind it, not just a part number. Lockheed Martin builds its culture around three ideas it asks every employee to live by — Collaborate to Win, Accelerate Change, and Hear and Be Heard — backed by core values of Do What's Right, Respect Others, and Perform With Excellence. On the shop floor, that translates into close collaboration between machinists, manufacturing engineers, and quality teams, and a genuine expectation that tooling and process-improvement feedback from the machine operator gets heard and acted on.

There's also the depth and stability that comes with a company of this size — 23,000+ people in the Space business area alone, backed by the resources of the broader Lockheed Martin enterprise. That means real long-term program work, structured shift schedules (including a 9x80 rotation that builds in every other Friday off), and a machining career with room to grow rather than one tied to the next short-term contract.

⚙️ What you'll be working on

The current openings at King of Prussia span the full range of precision CNC work behind aerospace manufacturing: setting up and operating horizontal and vertical CNC machining centers to drill, mill, bore, and tap precision parts from engineering drawings and CAD data; verifying G&M code during setup and production runs; selecting and adjusting cutting tools and machine offsets; and inspecting finished parts with precision measurement tools against tight aerospace tolerances. On the programming side, manufacturing engineers develop and optimize CNC programs for 3-, 4-, and 5-axis machines, validate them through machine prove-outs, and help take parts from prototype through full-rate production ramp-up. Across every role, the work ties directly back to production performance — tracking output against targets and feeding tooling and process improvements to manufacturing engineering on parts that ultimately fly.

⭐ Shop highlights

• Legacy dating to 1912, carried forward through the 1995 merger of Lockheed Corporation and Martin Marietta
• Space business area alone reports $12.5 billion in annual sales, 23,000+ employees, and 190+ locations worldwide
• Work supports iconic, publicly known programs — Orion, GPS III, Lucy, GeoXO, and SBIRS among them
• Prototype-through-full-rate production experience, not single-run job-shop work
• Security-cleared production environment (Secret and Top Secret clearance roles)
• Structured 9x80 schedule with every other Friday off on production shifts
• Dedicated manufacturing engineering support for tooling, fixturing, and process improvement

🛠️ Machines & technology

CNC Mills: Horizontal and vertical CNC machining centers, 3-, 4-, and 5-axis milling
CNC Lathes / Mill-Turn: 5-axis mill-turn (milling & turning) machining centers
Controls: Siemens 840D (Celos), DMG (CELOS), Mazak / Mazatrol
CAM Software: Siemens NX, Mastercam

📏 Quality & inspection

Parts are inspected during and after machining using precision measurement tools — calipers, micrometers, and gauges — against tight aerospace specifications, with machinists verifying G&M code at setup and throughout production runs. Manufacturing engineers validate new and revised programs through machine prove-outs before parts move into full-rate production, and continuous feedback between machinists, engineers, and quality teams keeps tooling, fixturing, and process improvements moving on programs that support NASA and U.S. Space Force missions.

💼 Current CNC career opportunities

CNC Machinist III (2nd Shift)

Experimental CNC Machinist III

Machining Manufacturing Engineer - Level 3

View current opportunities and apply through hireCNC.