With demand for Patriot PAC-3 interceptors sharpened by Russian and Iranian ballistic missile attacks, Lockheed Martin unveiled plans to build a smaller and cheaper, if less capable, version of the exquisite interceptor.
The Adapted Capability Effector, or ACE, missile would use the PAC-3’s launcher and command and control software, but a less expensive rocket motor, radar, and electronic brain, according to a company announcement and remarks by Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control president Tim Cahil at the Farnborough International Airshow.
The ACE lacks some of the features to counter the most advanced missiles, said Cahil, but is intended to be useful against the type of lower-tech short-range ballistic missiles that Iran and Russia have used in recent destructive attacks.
Said one missile defense analyst, “It is conceivable that if you affect the cost drivers, that you—that’s probably how you get down to a lower cost. The cost drivers and the bottlenecks of the current PAC-3 missiles are things like the seeker.”
Tom Karako, the director of the Missile Defense Project at CSIS, said, “The United States and its allies, the entire PAC-3 community needs as many PAC-3s as industry collectively can produce. But we’re also going to need alternatives, and not everything needs the most exquisite capability. And so this is why the low-cost interceptor competition is important and urgent.”
Cahill cautioned that the missile is not “designed to go after drones.” It is, however, designed to address a defensive gap that today’s wave of defense tech startups have been unable to fix: a less expensive way to shoot down, say, an Iskander-M traveling at 5,600 miles per hour.
While Ukrainian and U.S. companies have developed counter-drone solutions, short-range missile defense is one of the few areas where Ukraine can’t replace a U.S. capability.
That’s a deadly problem for Kyiv. Last July, the White House claimed that its aid to Ukraine had drawn the Pentagon’s stocks of Patriots. That turned out not to be true at the time, but became so after President Trump launched his war on Iran in February. An By April, CSIS wrote, the United States had used up about half of its supply.
When Ukraine ran out of PAC-3 interceptors this month, Russia responded with increased short-range attacks.
That supply-and-demand gap is prompting more defense companies to try to produce ballistic-missile interceptors. But so far, none has succeeded. The closest European alternative to the Patriot, the French-Italian SAMP/T, is not as effective, Ukrainian officials have said.
Lockheed, meanwhile, is pitching the idea of ACE missiles to at least some of the 18 countries that already have compatible PAC-3 launchers.The company envisions “joint development and production with European partners,” according to their statement.
Cahill said the new interceptor might enter production in 2028—or possibly even sooner, depending on how ready governments are to open their pocketbooks and work together.
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