The US Department of Defense (DoD) will provide nealry $1bn towards the lifecycle support of the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) and Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) in a contract update issued on 21 July 2025.
It comes under an extant framework agreement for the indefinite delivery and quantity of these AGM-158 cruise missiles.
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These funds will support Lockheed Martin, the original equipment manufacturer, in its production of the weapons in Orlando, Florida, and will be completed by 17 July 2030.
Multi-year procurements of munition systems are a key anti-fragility measure to increase industry resilience and ensure operations can be ramped up more quickly going forward.
Currently, Lockheed Martin are attempting to integrate both weapon systems on the external carriage beneath the F-35 Lightning II aircraft.
This effort comes under the forthcoming Block 4 modernisation of the multirole fighter, which Lockheed Martin executives Greg Ulmer and J. R. McDonald labelled the “most aggressive update” yet in a briefing at the Paris Air Show 2025.
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By GlobalDataLockheed Martin is currently executing the Accelerated Acquisition contract for the LRASM Deployment Office, further maturing technologies delivered as an early operational capability for the US Air Force B-1B and US Navy F/A-18E/F.
The OEM is also investing in a surface-launch variant to be used from the Mk41 vertical launch system currently in the fleet.
LRASM successfully completed B-1B integration and flight testing, leading the way to an early operational capability (EOC) declaration by the US Air Force in December 2018. The programme now marches on with F/A-18E/F flight testing leading to an EOC milestone in 2019.
Meanwhile, as one of Lockheed Martin’s first cruise missiles, JASSM has been deployed over the last 20 years with the US Air Force, providing long-range, precision engagement capabilities for air-to-ground missions.
In June 2022, Lockheed Martin brought online a new 225,000 square-foot manufacturing facility including a fully robotic paint line, increased automation in testing processes, as well as dynamic factory modelling for future production forecasting.
