¡¡WASHINGTON, Jan. 13 (Xinhuanet) -- The U.S. military has called off an 879-million-U.S.-dollar contract with Lockheed Martin Corp. to build a new spy plane for cost and weight concerns, U.S. media reported Friday.

    Claude Bolton, the U.S. Army's assistant secretary for acquisition and logistics, made the decision after a review concluded that it will not be prudent to continue the contract.

    He said concerns about the plane's cost and weight are key factors in the decision to terminate the contract.

    However, Bolton said cancellation of the contract does not mean the end of the U.S. military's effort to develop a common spy plane for all military services.

    The contract's termination also affects Brazilian plane producer Embraer, the partner of Lockheed in the program and assigned to build the airframe.

    The new plane, called as Aerial Common Sensor, had been aimed to serve as a new surveillance aircraft for both U.S. army and navy.

    The army had planned to buy five fully configured such aircraft and the navy two through 2010.

    But the U.S. military ordered production work to stop in September and gave Lockheed 60 days to come up with options for fixing development problems that had emerged.

    In November, Lockheed had proposed switching from the Embraer 145 jet to a larger Bombardier Global Express business jet as the airframe for the new spy plane, but the option was also rejected. Enditem