The Department of Defense has awarded two missile defense contracts worth an eye-popping $7.6 billion to Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, the Pentagon revealed late Tuesday. The contracts are for work on the Next-Generation Interceptor program, a new ballistic missile defense system meant to defend against incoming missile threats from the likes of Iran and North Korea. Northrop won a contract worth up to $3.9 billion to design a next-generation interceptor to take the place of ground-based interceptors currently used in the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system. Lockheed won a contract worth up to $3.7 billion for the same project, and the two will now compete to design the winning interceptor. While Boeing, which had also bid on the contract, was notably sidelined, the Department of Defense said selecting both Northrop and Lockheed “increased competition by funding two designs while remaining flexible to align with evolving Defense Department strategies and priorities.”