WASHINGTON — To the surprise of some aerospace industry oddsmakers, Lockheed Martin bested a team of Northrop Grumman and Boeing to win a $3.9 billion contract to help NASA design and build Orion, a capsule meant to replace the space shuttle as the agency’s primary manned spacecraft. The contract could be worth as much as $8.15 billion through 2019, depending on how many of the reusable Orion spacecraft NASA orders.
