The award is the signal, but only if you read which award. Lockheed Martin's 2024 Form 10-K, filed in late January 2025, says backlog increased in 2024 compared with 2023 primarily due to higher orders on its IWSS and C6ISR programs. That sentence is more useful than the backlog total itself.
Here is why. A reader who follows Lockheed for its Space segment might see "backlog rose" and assume space demand drove it. The filing says otherwise: the growth attribution points to IWSS (integrated warfare systems and sensors) and C6ISR (command, control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) — not the Space segment.
Follow the appropriation, and then follow the program. Backlog attribution is the disclosure that prevents a generalist from drawing the wrong conclusion. A company can post record backlog while the specific segment you care about is flat, because a different program absorbed the new orders.
This is the recurring discipline of Backlog Watch: never read the consolidated backlog figure without reading the management explanation that immediately follows it. The total tells you the company is healthy; the attribution tells you where the health is coming from — and whether it touches your program of interest.
For Space-segment watchers specifically, the absence of space from the named growth drivers is itself information. It does not mean space is shrinking; it means the marginal new orders in 2024 were concentrated elsewhere. The 10-K is the primary record, surfaced via EdgarBeast, with the filing on sec.gov.
The takeaway: a backlog headline without its attribution is half a fact. Lockheed's 2024 10-K hands you the other half — and it points at IWSS and C6ISR, not space. Read the sentence after the number.