Northrop Grumman Corporation

Northrop Grumman Corporation is a leading global aerospace and defense technology company that designs, manufactures, and integrates military aircraft, space systems, missile defense, strategic deterrent systems, and advanced electronics, generating $41.95 billion in revenue in fiscal 2025. With approximately 95,000 employees, a record $105 billion backlog as of mid-2026, and 84% of sales derived from the U.S. Department of War and intelligence community, the company sits at the center of the Western defense-industrial complex at a moment when defense spending is rising globally.

This is a story about an incumbent defense prime executing across a portfolio that spans most of the Pentagon's highest-priority programs — the B-21 Raider stealth bomber, the Sentinel ICBM modernization, the PAC-3 solid rocket motor qualification, and a growing suite of restricted space and missile defense work — while simultaneously navigating the risks inherent in fixed-price development contracts and ramping production capacity at a pace not seen since the Cold War. Unlike peers with large commercial aerospace exposure, Northrop Grumman is a pure-play defense franchise. The question the file turns on is whether the company can convert its record backlog into sustained margin expansion as development-phase programs mature into production, or whether the fixed-price cost pressures that produced a $477 million B-21 loss charge in early 2025 represent a persistent headwind.