Lockheed Martin workers in Huntsville and elsewhere in Alabama will help boost ballistic missile defense for a key U.S. partner in the Middle East under a Pentagon contract announced this week.

The company was awarded a $211,739,333 modification to a previous contract to provide maintenance and other services for two Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) batteries for the United Arab Emirates. The deal occurred under a foreign military sales case, with the UAE covering the cost.

The contract’s value is now $729,556,034, according to the Department of Defense.

The scope of work includes providing logistics management, training, missile and ground repair and return, hardware/software development and sustainment, and “country unique specialty engineering.” The work will be performed in Sunnyvale, Calif.; Grande Prairie, Texas; Camden, Ark.; and in Huntsville, Anniston and Troy.

THAAD provides defense against short, medium and intermediate-range ballistic missile threats, according to Lockheed Martin. It targets hostile missiles in their final phase of flight at ranges of up to 200 kilometers – farther out than Patriot missile batteries but nearer than the longer-range ground-based midcourse defense system.

As of January 2024, the UAE is the only Middle Eastern nation to deploy THAAD. Saudi Arabia is expected to take delivery of multiple batteries starting in 2026, according to a Congressional Research Service report.

In January 2022, the UAE’s THAAD successfully intercepted Houthi militant ballistic missiles, which marked the system’s first operational intercept in a combat environment by any nation.

The UAE received approval later that year to buy two additional THAAD batteries, along with 96 missile rounds. Calling the nation “a vital U.S. partner for political stability and economic progress in the Middle East,” the sale would improve the UAE’s ability to meet current and future ballistic missile threats in the region, and reduce dependence on U.S. forces, the Pentagon said at that time.