U.S. expands missile production as Army seeks more depth in its arsenal

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — The Pentagon is pressing defense contractors to increase production of missile interceptors as recent conflicts expose a longstanding weakness in U.S. air and missile defense: inventories of the most capable weapons can be depleted faster than industry can replace them.

Army leaders say increasing production is only part of the answer.

“The future of missile defense is a mix of high end and lower cost interceptors,” said Lt. Gen. John Rafferty, commander of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command.

Speaking with reporters at the Space & Missile Defense Symposium Aug. 11, Rafferty said he couldn’t discuss how the Pentagon was addressing shortages of advanced hit-to-kill weapons used against ballistic missiles. Pentagon leaders, he said, “are the ones that are really signaling the need and the urgency for quantities.”

“We’re not really in the quantity business, we’re more in the consumption business,” Rafferty said.

His comments come as the Pentagon moves to expand production across the missile-defense industrial base after heavy use of U.S. interceptors in recent conflicts. 

Last week, the department announced multibillion-dollar agreements involving Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman to increase output of PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense interceptors and components. Those actions follow a $1 billion Pentagon investment in L3Harris Technologies intended in part to expand solid rocket motor capacity.

The production push addresses the immediate problem of replenishing inventories. But military planners have long argued that a force built largely around sophisticated interceptors such as PAC-3 MSE and THAAD can face an unfavorable cost and inventory equation if those weapons are used against every type of incoming threat.

A broader defensive architecture could include less-expensive interceptors, guns, electronic warfare systems and, eventually, directed-energy weapons, said Rafferty. 

THAAD, for example, provides a high-altitude layer of ballistic-missile defense that can’t simply be replaced by a cheaper short-range system. Patriot generally operates lower in the battlespace. Together they give commanders multiple opportunities to engage an incoming missile.

Rafferty said the same principle applies to offensive weapons, where commanders would seek to overwhelm an adversary with weapons offering different trajectories, speeds, flight profiles and levels of performance.

For now, however, some of these alternatives remain years from widespread use.

“We have to prove out the technology,” Rafferty said of high-energy lasers and high-power microwave systems.

Contractors pressed to replenish inventories

A research note dated Aug. 10 from BNP Paribas Equity Research highlighted the urgency. The note, citing Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said U.S. missile-defense inventories were at “dire” levels after heavy use in Ukraine and the Middle East.

Karako also told BNP analysts that stocks of longer-range offensive stand-off weapons were low, in part because the Pentagon has favored weapons that can be launched from greater distances rather than shorter-range munitions such as Joint Direct Attack Munitions and Small Diameter Bombs, which can require aircraft to operate closer to enemy defenses.

Inventories of those shorter-range weapons were in better condition, he said, according to the research note.

Even with strong demand, expanding missile production remains constrained by specialized suppliers and the federal budget process.

Karako said solid rocket motors continue to be a chokepoint, though that pressure could ease as the two dominant U.S. producers, Northrop and L3Harris, increase output and newer suppliers seek qualification.

New entrants are focusing largely on smaller-diameter motors, according to Karako. He also said the U.S. might not need such a broad field of suppliers over the longer term, raising the possibility of consolidation after the current expansion cycle.

The fiscal 2027 budget could pose another constraint.

Some suppliers have announced preliminary agreements that allow work to begin before all terms are settled. But Karako said definitive awards needed to support parts of the production ramp haven’t been made because fiscal 2027 appropriations are still required.

He sees little chance of significant budget progress before the midterm elections and said Congress could still have difficulty completing spending legislation during a lame-duck session at the end of the year, according to BNP.

The Pentagon, meanwhile, is trying to give suppliers enough long-term visibility to invest before every production award is finalized.

Northrop’s recently announced PAC-3 arrangement illustrates that approach. A seven-year framework worth roughly $2 billion positions the company to supply PAC-3 MSE solid rocket motors as a newly qualified second source and to increase production of ignition-safety devices. Specific production awards and revenue are expected to follow under the framework.

The agreement is significant for the solid rocket motor market because Northrop is being added as an alternative propulsion supplier to L3Harris, creating program-level competition on PAC-3 MSE between the two established U.S. motor producers. Northrop Grumman claims to have invested about $2 billion across its munitions and solid rocket motor businesses over the past several years, including more than $1 billion dedicated specifically to solid rocket motors.

Northrop’s THAAD role is different. The company is already a supplier of structural and thermal-protection components and is being asked to expand those operations alongside Lockheed’s broader interceptor production ramp.

Under a separate agreement valued at about $1 billion, Northrop plans to quadruple production of interceptor shell structures, aft bulkhead assemblies and heat shields. Those components will be supplied exclusively to Lockheed, the THAAD prime contractor and final integrator.

“This will enable us to invest millions to expand our manufacturing capacity in support of the THAAD program,” said Dan Federico, director of vehicle engineering at Northrop Grumman Space Sector’s Western Region.

The agreement is part of a wider effort by the Pentagon and Lockheed to raise annual THAAD production capacity from 96 interceptors to 400.

That increase can’t be achieved by expanding Lockheed’s final assembly operations alone. Suppliers producing propulsion systems, seekers, structural components and thermal-protection hardware have to increase output at roughly the same time.

The Pentagon has increasingly been working directly with those suppliers in an effort to prevent individual components from becoming bottlenecks.

For Northrop, the THAAD work includes the interceptor shell core, a load-bearing structure around which other missile hardware is integrated, and aft bulkhead assemblies at the rear of the interceptor that must withstand substantial loads during launch and powered flight.

The company also makes the interceptor’s heat-shield assemblies, which protect it from the severe thermal environment created by high-speed flight. Federico said the heat shield was designed by Lockheed Martin.

The thermal challenge has some similarities to those faced by spacecraft returning through the atmosphere, though the missions differ.

“This interceptor is launched and travels at tremendous speed, reaching Mach 8, or over 6,000 miles per hour to intercept incoming ballistic missiles,” Federico said in an interview.

THAAD is designed to intercept short-, medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles during their terminal phase, including at high altitudes and, in some engagements, outside the atmosphere. A solid rocket booster provides the interceptor’s initial acceleration, while a separate divert and attitude-control system maneuvers the kill vehicle toward its target.

Federico said the system has taken on greater importance as ballistic-missile attacks in the Middle East have increased demand for U.S. missile defenses.

“It’s a very unique strategic munition that has been doing a lot of heavy lifting, especially with what’s going on in the Middle East,” said Federico.

Reporting from SpaceNews contributed to this story.