Army awards contract to Lockheed for air-to-ground missile system

The Army awarded a $500 million contract to Lockheed Martin to manufacture an air-to-ground missile system as part of a foreign sale, according to a Defense Department announcement.

Lockheed Martin will manufacture the air-to-ground missile system in Orlando, FL, for all the services as well as Australia, France, India and the Netherlands, with an estimated completion date of Sept. 30, 2026, the announcement says.

The contract follows earlier announcements that the Army approved Lockheed's Joint-Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM) for full-rate production.

The JAGM has a multipurpose warhead designed to simultaneously acquire multiple targets, including those that are stationary, moving, seaborne and airborne. It can be launched from the MQ-1C UAV, the Army’s Apache helicopters and the Marine Corps’ Viper helicopters.

The missile is a successor to the military’s Hellfire family of missiles.