Lockheed Martin, one of the largest defense contractors in the world, reported second-quarter 2026 sales of $20.1 billion, up 11% from the same period a year ago. The company earned $1.8 billion in profit, which works out to $7.94 per share (Lockheed Martin).

That per-share profit beat what Wall Street analysts were expecting — they had forecast $7.28 per share (Yahoo Finance). It was also a big jump from the first quarter of 2026, when the company earned $1.5 billion, or $6.44 per share (Lockheed Martin Investor Relations).

The company also generated plenty of cash. It brought in $3.2 billion in cash from its operations and $2.9 billion in what's called free cash flow (Lockheed Martin). Free cash flow is the money left over after a company pays for its buildings, equipment, and other major costs — it is the cash a company can actually put to use. The board also declared a dividend of $3.45 per share for the third quarter, payable September 25, 2026 (Lockheed Martin).

A big reason for the revenue growth is Lockheed's record backlog of $230 billion (Lockheed Martin). Backlog is the total value of contracts the company has signed but has not yet completed — think of it as a reservation list for future work. That $230 billion reflects months of new deals, especially in missiles and air defense. In April 2026, Lockheed secured a $4.7 billion contract to speed up production of its PAC-3 missile defense system (Lockheed Martin). In March, the company said it had quadrupled production capacity for its Precision Strike Missile after the Army approved the program in July 2025 (Lockheed Martin). Production of Javelin anti-tank missiles has also been scaling up to meet rising global demand (Lockheed Martin).

Around the Farnborough International Air Show in July, Lockheed announced a flurry of new projects. On July 20, it unveiled a counter-drone system called MORFIUS X-Rotor that can neutralize more than 50 enemy drones in a single flight, and a lower-cost interceptor called PAC-3 ACE for a range of missile threats (Lockheed Martin). The idea behind both is to pair expensive, high-performance missiles with cheaper options — a strategy that could affect both how long the backlog lasts and how profitable these programs are.

Lockheed's helicopter division, Sikorsky, was busy too. On July 22, it tested an uncrewed aircraft called Nomad 100 and signed an agreement with Safran Helicopter Engines to explore working together (Lockheed Martin). On July 20, Sikorsky said it would put its MATRIX autonomous flight system into BETA Technologies' MV250 aircraft (Lockheed Martin). On July 16, the company confirmed it wants to build a new generation of helicopters in Europe (Lockheed Martin). On July 21, Lockheed and Venus Aerospace announced a partnership to study a new type of rocket engine for long-range precision weapons (Lockheed Martin).

What stands out is how wide-ranging these announcements are. They cover drone defense, autonomous flight, helicopter modernization, advanced rocket engines, and missile interceptors. This is not one product driving the business — it is many different programs all feeding into that $230 billion order book.

The broader context here is worth understanding. The analyst estimate of $7.28 per share happens to match what Lockheed earned in the first quarter of 2025 (Lockheed Martin Investor Relations). The jump from $6.44 per share in Q1 2026 to $7.94 in Q2 — a 23% increase in one quarter — reflects the fact that as production ramps up on programs like the Precision Strike Missile and PAC-3, those contracts are turning into actual recognized sales.

Looking ahead, the fact that free cash flow ($2.9 billion) came in higher than profit ($1.8 billion) is a good sign — it means cash is flowing in faster than it is being tied up in day-to-day operations. Whether that continues depends on whether the production ramps — Javelin, PrSM, PAC-3 — go smoothly or run into the cost overruns that often happen when defense manufacturing scales up quickly. The record backlog gives Lockheed visibility into years of future revenue. The real question for the quarters ahead is whether profit margins hold as production volume increases, or whether the fixed-price contracts in some of these deals squeeze profitability even as revenue keeps growing.