The Pentagon is racing to buy more than 10,000 cheaper cruise missiles as the war with Iran strains U.S. missile stockpiles and puts fresh pressure on the military’s ability to quickly replace expensive weapons.
The Department of Defense announced on Wednesday that it reached framework agreements with Anduril, CoAspire, Leidos and Zone 5 to launch the Low-Cost Containerized Munitions program, a new effort aimed at buying cheaper cruise missiles in bulk as the war with Iran intensifies concerns about U.S. missile stockpiles. Military.com reached out for comment to the Defense Innovation Unit, the Air Force, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, Leidos, Zone 5 and Castelion.
The Low-Cost Containerized Munitions program aims to give the military cheaper missiles it can buy in bulk, field quickly, and potentially fire from mobile launch systems. It comes as ongoing operations in the Middle East intensify questions about whether the U.S. can sustain a missile-heavy conflict while keeping enough firepower available for future crises.
“Today’s announcement is the latest sign that our Acquisition Transformation Strategy is delivering on its promise to rebuild the Arsenal of Freedom,” Michael Duffey, the under secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, said Wednesday. “We are moving beyond the traditional prime contractors to expand our industrial base, accelerating testing timelines, and sending a clear, long-term demand signal to innovative new entrants.”
A Pentagon official told Military.com on Wednesday that the program is meant to expand the department’s strike options without replacing its most advanced weapons.
“The LCCM program brings in non-traditional commercial innovators to rapidly expand the Department’s lethal strike capacity,” the official said. “The Department is using the LCCM program to build a diverse portfolio of cost-effective, high-low mix of strike options that complement existing exquisite systems like TLAM.”
Pentagon Races To Build Cheaper Missile Arsenal
A separate agreement with Castelion is focused on scaling lower-cost hypersonic weapons, including the company’s Blackbeard missile, showing the Pentagon is trying to expand not just traditional cruise missile inventories but a broader mix of strike weapons that can be produced faster and in larger numbers.
The DOD said the cruise missile effort is designed to procure more than 10,000 low-cost missiles across portfolios in three years, starting in 2027, adding that it will begin buying test missiles from all four companies in June 2026 as part of an assessment phase meant to determine which systems can move quickly from testing to production.
Anduril said Wednesday that its framework agreement with the Defense Department covers at least 3,000 surface-launched Barracuda-500M systems for the Army’s Program Acquisition Executive Fires over three years, with the ability to increase that number based on department requirements.
The company said it plans to deliver at least 1,000 all-up rounds per year, with the first deliveries expected in the first half of 2027, along with more than 60 containerized launchers starting that year.
The agreements establish terms for future firm-fixed-price production contracts and include fixed material-unit costs for production lots from 2027 through 2029, according to the Pentagon. The structure reflects the Pentagon’s stated goal of delivering “affordable mass,” a phrase officials used in Wednesday’s announcement to describe lower-cost weapons that can be produced in larger numbers.
“We will deliver affordable mass for our warfighters at unprecedented speed,” said Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emil Michael on Wednesday.
Defense Startups Join Pentagon Missile Rush
The Pentagon framed the missile agreements as part of a broader break from the traditional defense-industrial model, saying it is moving beyond legacy prime contractors to bring in faster-moving companies, newer designs and production approaches that could scale more quickly.
CoAspire CEO Doug Denneny told Military.com on Wednesday that the company is competing as a prime contractor in the Pentagon’s LCCM program with GHOST, its ground-launched version of the Rapidly Adaptable Affordable Cruise Missile-Extended Range, or RAACM-ER.
He said CoAspire could move from test missiles to production-scale delivery in about six months. The company’s GHOST missile is designed for containerized ground launch, while other RAACM and RAACM-ER variants are available for air and maritime surface launch.
“We can design, print and build our missiles quickly, eliminating years of development and costs,” Denneny said. “We flew our first missile four months after [the] contract award. We started with a new design, no parts except two engines, and bought or built everything else and flew the missile off a fighter jet in record time.”
Denneny said CoAspire’s missile fuselage is additively manufactured, or 3D-printed, out of aluminum, reducing the need for specialized tooling and allowing the company to redesign parts quickly after flight testing.
“We design, test and deliver in a fraction of time that it takes to develop other missiles, reducing costs,” Denneny said.
He said CoAspire supports the Pentagon’s push to bring more vendors into the defense industrial base and buy large numbers of cheaper missiles.
Pentagon-Wide Push
The agreements show how widely the effort is being pushed across the Pentagon.
Work was coordinated with the Air Force Program Acquisition Executive Weapons, the Test Resource Management Center and several components across the department, including the offices for research and engineering and acquisition and sustainment. The Army Program Acquisition Executive Fires will serve as the transition partner and acquisition lead for procurement.
Anduril said its surface-launched Barracuda-500M is designed for long-range precision fires and stand-off strike missions, with a 100-pound payload and a range of more than 500 nautical miles. The company said the missile can be fired from a standard 20-foot ISO container loaded with up to 16 all-up rounds, giving commanders a mobile launcher that can be transported and emplaced before launch.
The company also framed the missile as a production problem as much as a weapons problem. Anduril said the Barracuda family was designed for large-scale manufacturing, with the SLB-500M made of 70% commodity components and able to be assembled in 30 hours with 10 common hand tools.
Anduril said it has invested more than $40 million in a 115,000-square-foot production facility in Southern California and plans to eventually shift production to Arsenal-1, its planned nearly $1 billion, 5 million-square-foot production facility in Columbus, Ohio. The company also said it has put $75 million in private capital and $58 million in Defense Production Act Title III funding toward solid rocket motor production in Mississippi.
The result is a missile race inside the defense industry: companies that can prove they can build cheaper weapons quickly may get a larger role in the Pentagon’s future arsenal, especially as the military looks for ways to preserve its most expensive missiles for the hardest targets.
Iran War Exposes Missile Crunch
The move comes as the war with Iran is accelerating demand for missiles, interceptors and other precision-guided weapons at a pace that could strain U.S. stockpiles.
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the Pentagon is seeking cheaper cruise missiles after heavy wartime use drained munitions stocks. Reuters reported the same day that the Pentagon is ramping up funding requests for munitions amid high demand tied to the Iran war.
The push reflects a blunt cost problem for the military: missiles such as Tomahawks can cost more than $2 million each, while the new lower-cost missiles are expected to cost only a few hundred thousand dollars apiece, according to the WSJ.
A CSIS assessment published in April said the U.S. fired more than 850 Tomahawks in the first month of the Iran war, citing The Washington Post. WSJ later put Tomahawk use above 1,000.
The new low-cost missile push is meant to give the Pentagon a deeper magazine: cheaper weapons that can be bought in larger numbers, used against more targets and preserved alongside higher-end missiles for missions that require greater range, survivability or payload.
The stockpile concern has been building beyond this new program. U.S. missile use in recent Middle East operations has already raised questions about how quickly the Navy can replace weapons fired from ships and submarines, including after a carrier strike group burned through large numbers of missiles defending against attacks and launching Tomahawk strikes.
The Pentagon is also moving to scale a separate lower-cost hypersonic weapons effort with Castelion, showing the missile-buying push goes beyond cheaper cruise missiles.
The department said Castelion could receive a two-year, multiyear procurement contract for at least 500 Blackbeard missiles annually once the company completes testing and validation. That would put Blackbeard on a path toward annual production numbers far higher than many traditional hypersonic programs, which have often been expensive, technically difficult and slower to field.
The Pentagon said it is seeking the authorizations and appropriations needed to buy more than 12,000 Blackbeard missiles over five years. That scale would mark a major bet on lower-cost hypersonic weapons at a time when the military is trying to build deeper magazines for future conflicts.
Castelion announced in April that it received a $105 million Navy contract to continue integrating Blackbeard onto the F/A-18 Super Hornet and move the weapon toward early operational capability in 2027. Bryon Hargis, Castelion’s CEO and co-founder, said in the company’s April 24 announcement that the Navy’s commitment to “affordable, innovative hypersonic capability” showed “clear determination to move fast for the warfighter.”
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