Overview
- The Department of the Air Force awarded Lockheed Martin a $694 million production contract for the AGM-183A ARRW on Sept. 29, 2026, formally shifting the program from prototyping and flight testing into production.
- ARRW is a boost-glide hypersonic weapon that uses a solid-rocket booster to exceed Mach 5, releases a maneuvering glide vehicle that relies on impact kinetic energy rather than a conventional explosive warhead, and the Air Force says it has a range of about 1,000 miles.
- The service is withholding how many missiles the contract covers and when deliveries will start for operational security, and continued buys depend on multi-year budget plans that include a $362 million FY2026 allotment and a roughly $452 million FY2027 request currently stalled in Congress.
- The program recovered from early flight-test failures and a near-cancellation in 2023 after further testing and a 2025 policy shift, including a live launch from Guam and integration trials on large bombers that validated booster, glider and warhead components.
- Fielding will be limited to large bombers such as the B-52 and B-1 because of ARRW’s size, the Air Force sees the missile as a tool to penetrate advanced anti-access/area-denial defenses in high-end scenarios, and officials plan follow-on work on seeker and data-link concepts for future variants.