The Pentagon has announced new agreements with three defense companies to mass-produce more affordable air-to-ground cruise missiles, including a set capable of being launched out of the back of cargo planes.
The deals are part of a push for what military officials are calling the “Family of Affordable Mass Missiles,” or FAMMs, and fit within a wider Trump administration effort to show how the Pentagon is now “doing business differently,” according to Under Secretary of War Michael P. Duffey.
Mr. Duffey, who is responsible for the Pentagon’s acquisition and sustainment arm, said in a statement on Wednesday that new agreements undergird the administration’s push to build an “Arsenal of Freedom of the 21st Century.
“Today’s announcement showcases the Acquisition Transformation Strategy in action, expanding the defense industrial base, fielding capabilities faster, and attracting private investment to fund innovation and increase manufacturing output,” he said.
Defense industry sources say the FAMMs are designed to fall into two categories for use by the U.S. Air Force.
One design is meant to be used in a more traditional way, attaching directly with launch points already on an aircraft. The other is meant to be used with cargo planes, effectively dropping a pallet out of the rear ramp without having to modify the plane.
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The missiles will offer a greater utility to the Air Force, including “flexible logistics, handling, and deployment options” according to a Pentagon press release.
The need for high-volume, low-cost tools has driven military producers to design missiles that can be mass produced quickly and act more like a rocket propelled, one-way attack drone than a traditional cruise missile.
At the same time, the push for systems that cost less and can be treated more like traditional ammunition than expensive technology is fueling U.S. government investment and contracts across the industry.
While the Pentagon’s release did not mention any specific missiles, it said the new agreements are with CoAspire, a Virginia based aerospace company, and the California-based companies Anduril Industries and Zone 5.
In its own press release, Andruil pointed to its Barracuda-500 as the main weapon involved in the contract. The company said it has invested “more than $40 million” into a California production facility that will build the systems.
Production will then shift to the new hyper-scale facility in Columbus, Ohio, called Arsenal-1, later this year, Anduril said.
“We completed the first successful flight test of Pallet-Launched Barracuda-500M in September 2024 and have since conducted dozens of successful flight tests,” the company said. That includes autonomous flights and possibly using systems that let AI drive the missiles for the last few hundred yards.
Anduril has made headlines in recent years by pushing assembly-line style weapons manufacturing. The Barracuda-500 has variants, including a ground-launch variant, with “90% of their parts in common” across the range of missiles, the company said.
Production isn’t just limited to Anduril.
CoAspire, which is based in Fairfax, Virginia, is producing its “Rapidly Adaptable Affordable Cruise Missile,” or RAACM, as part of the FAMMs program.
Unlike the Barracuda, the RAACM is meant to compete exclusively as an “air-launched cruise missile,” according to the company’s website.
Zone 5, meanwhile, is also California-based, but is owned by a foreign business. Norwegian Kongsberg acquired Zone 5 earlier this year.
Its entrant into the FAMMs program, the “Rusty Dagger,” has already been used against targets in Russia, according to Russian reports of an attack in June. The rapidly fielded weapon is styled more like a glide bomb, with a reported range over 285 miles.
The Pentagon announcement said the deals feature seven-year, fixed minimum quantity agreements, aimed at extending and stabilizing the demand signal for private defense industry production. The deals, which also lock in a current price, have not yet been approved by Congress.
The Pentagon also said the FAMMs push is key to “a unique model balancing competition, stability and long-term demand signals to scale production” — a claimed new approach for a U.S. military that has suffered massive overspending on major contracts in the past.
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