The deals cover avionics and ejector assemblies Boeing supplies to prime contractor Raytheon, an RTX business, for both the SM-3 Block IB and the newer Block IIA. Both variants operate with the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System to destroy incoming missiles outside the atmosphere.

“These agreements ensure our Warfighters get the munitions they need to win,” Michael P. Duffey, under secretary of war for acquisition and sustainment, said in the Pentagon release. “We are stabilizing our supply chains, expanding munitions production and putting our entire defense industrial base on a wartime footing.”

The frameworks run for seven years and allow Boeing to start building components before a contract is in place, while the three sides negotiate a multiyear deal. The long-term commitment is intended to give suppliers enough certainty to invest in added capacity. Neither the Pentagon nor Boeing released dollar figures or quantities.

“This gives us a clear demand signal to build and deliver SM-3 interceptors at the levels needed to counter threats,” Bob Ciesla, vice president of Boeing Precision Engagement Systems, said in a company statement. “The SM-3 is an essential part of the layered air and missile defense architecture that protects the U.S. and its allies worldwide.”

The approach mirrors a seven-year deal Boeing struck in April to triple production of PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement seekers, part of a broader Pentagon effort to lock in supply from key subcontractors alongside the prime contractors.

Earlier this month, the Missile Defense Agency awarded Raytheon a $745 million contract to produce fully assembled SM-3 Block IIA interceptors for the United States and Japan.

Demand for the interceptor traces back to April 2024, when Navy destroyers first fired SM-3s in combat, helping to thwart an Iranian ballistic missile attack on Israel. Far more interceptors have been launched since, including those fired in Operation Epic Fury.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated the SM-3 inventory at 414 as of December 2025. A May analysis from the center put wartime expenditures between 130 and 250 missiles and warned that replenishment will take years.

Congress has stepped in to keep the Block IB line open, the cheaper of the two variants covered by Friday’s agreements, after the Missile Defense Agency proposed ending new purchases in the fiscal 2025 budget request.

American officials are backpedaling too. Trump on July 20 told the Financial Times that the U.S. has to be “a little bit careful of who we license to.” Despite that, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday posted on X that the two sides have “now reached an agreement.”

The glacial progress may reflect American defense giants’ fear that Kyiv could become a defense industry competitor — rather than posing risk to technology or intellectual property — a Republican official on Capitol Hill told The Atlantic.

“Their real worry is that the Ukrainians will find a way to improve the Patriot and then produce them at scale faster and for much less money than what the existing production lines in the U.S. could do,” the official said, adding that the companies will publicly frame their concerns around “IP theft and tech transfer” instead.

Ukraine’s weapons industry, honed by nearly five years of Russia’s full-scale invasion, has been booming since the U.S.-Israel war with Iran began in the spring. The conflict with Iran has drained an estimated two-thirds of America’s pre-war Patriot interceptor inventory, sparking discussion about inventory and strategy.

Some defense partners are eager to work with Ukraine, a country with rare recent experience fighting a large-scale land war, and have shown strong interest in collaborating with Kyiv to develop and field cheaper, faster-to-produce alternatives to million-dollar weapons.

The race toward competition is problematic for the defense giants, the official said — not because Ukraine might steal the Patriot — but because the country’s partners might outbuild it, cutting into the current monopoly on antiballistic capabilities and profits.

Trump first pledged the license at the July NATO summit in Ankara, promising Ukraine permission to produce Patriot missiles for the first time.

“We’re going to give a license to you to make Patriots. That’s pretty cool. This way, you can’t complain that we’re not giving ‘em enough,” Trump said, adding that the companies had not yet been consulted on the plan.

Zelenskyy said the next day that the question had been “resolved politically,” telling reporters that technical teams needed to start work “without delay, so that we can get licenses very quickly and start production in Ukraine as soon as possible.”

Five days after Trump’s pledge, Ukraine, nine European countries and defense heavyweights including Eurosam, Leonardo, Thales and Saab launched a coalition in Paris to field Freyja, an entirely new antiballistic system built around a Ukrainian interceptor priced at roughly one-fifth of a Patriot round.

A week after that, Lockheed unveiled its own cheaper, faster-to-produce Patriot missile at the Farnborough International Airshow, advertising the PAC-3 ACE at roughly $2 million a round – less than half the price of the round Ukraine fires at Russian ballistic missiles today.

The Patriot line rarely moves that fast. Its current top round, the PAC-3 MSE, was first accepted by the U.S. Army in 2015 and took until 2018 to reach full-rate production, per the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance.

On July 21, one day after the ACE debut, Tim Cahill, president of Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, described production talks with Ukraine as simply “early,” telling reporters the company will “support the US Army and the [Trump] administration on what they want to go do,” according to Breaking Defense.

Raytheon’s process “has just started,” with the company working with the U.S. government “to determine what is feasible and what is best for Ukraine,” its president of land and air defense systems, Tom Laliberty, said at the same show.

Two days later, Zelenskyy wrote in a post on X that he was “grateful for the company’s readiness to take our partnership to an even higher level, where Ukraine would co-produce, together with Raytheon, some of the most vital air defense assets – Patriot interceptors,” after meeting representatives of the group.

But when Zelenskyy asked Trump for “several hundred” interceptors at a July 28 Oval Office meeting, the president refused, citing America’s shrunken stocks, The Atlantic reported.

Three days later, Trump reversed course on the license entirely.

“We have not agreed to that,” he said at a Camp David Cabinet meeting. “We’re talking about it, but it’s a hard thing to give away that kind of technology.”

Then, U.S. NATO Ambassador Matthew Whitaker dampened expectations further on Aug. 3, telling Fox News that “we do not allow anybody but US manufacturers to make those in the United States,” adding that a long-term production agreement “will not be concluded before this winter,” per Euronews.

The deal’s current status is unclear.

“The decision has been made,” Zelenskyy said during an interview on Ukrainian television over the weekend, according to United24. “It was made by the President of the United States and other important American government institutions.”

American officials have yet to respond to Zelenskyy’s latest comments.

Task Force Falcon Strike will utilize one-way attack drones composed of unmanned systems from above, on and below the sea, managed by U.S. military support staff and regional partners, according to a Thursday release.

The move to launch this unit follows CENTCOM’s establishment of Task Force Scorpion Strike in December 2025, a Middle East-based task force equipped with one-way attack drones as the military strived to integrate drone technology across the services.

“Task Force Falcon Strike will expand on Scorpion Strike’s success given the tremendous innovation happening among our regional allies and partners,” Adm. Brad Cooper, CENTCOM commander, said in the release. “Integrating and deploying our new capabilities together will help us rapidly realize the new possibilities that are on the horizon.”

Scorpion Strike was the first to launch an aerial attack drone from a U.S. Navy warship last December, the month of its announcement. The unit also deployed one-way unmanned aerial systems during Operation Epic Fury and during strikes on Iranian port facilities in July with unmanned attack vessels at sea, the statement highlights.

CENTCOM began consulting with and officially inviting regional partners to join Falcon Strike, aiming to expand attack-drone capabilities across the Middle East into a “unified multi-domain, multinational deterrent.”

“The United States military has a lot of strong partnerships and friends in the region,” Cooper said. “We are collectively stronger when we integrate and deploy new capabilities together.”

The release did not specify which regional partners CENTCOM is working with on the unit.

Personnel from the U.S. Special Operations Command Central, located at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, will lead Falcon Strike’s staff of U.S. and regional representatives after it launched Scorpion Strike, the release states.

The announcement comes as the U.S. continues its war with Iran, which has depleted the U.S. munitions stockpile and caused military leaders to weigh the possibility of developing cheaper anti-drone technology at a faster pace.

The training commenced with a three-day event at Twentynine Palms, California, where Marines from the 1st and 2nd Marine Divisions learned how to shoot down small unmanned aerial systems, or sUASs, with rifles, shotguns and grenade launchers, according to a recent release.

Capt. Faith Richardson, a platoon commander with the Tactical Training and Exercise Control Group, said in the release that they aimed to give Marines “a realistic look at the threat.”

For the exercise, TTECG created counter-sUAS lanes where Marines engaged simulated enemy drones from distances as close as 20 meters, or around 65 feet. Controlled by members of TTECG, nicknamed “Coyotes,” the drones reach speeds at over 90 miles per hour.

“The intent of the C-sUAS lanes was to build the confidence of our Marines to target sUAS and complete the mission,” Richardson added.

Inside the lane, Marines practiced using an assortment of weapons, including the M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle, the M1014 shotgun, and M32A1 and M320 grenade launchers as well as electronic anti-drone weapons.

In addition to the live-fire training, the event included house clearing and patrol exercises, which tested and evaluated Marines on their ability to deny, detect and defeat sUAS.

Richardson explained that by the end, participants developed the basic skillset to apply the C-sUAS mindset to all subsequent service-level training events.

While the U.S. military has long used large aircraft drones in combat, it has rapidly accelerated the use and experimentation of small commercial drones over the past couple of years.

In December 2025, the Pentagon launched the Drone Dominance program to invest $1.1 billion into the U.S. drone market. The goal is increasing the quality of the technology while decreasing price per unit.

The program was largely influenced by the war in Ukraine, where drones have become a dominating force on the battlefield. Combatants have used inexpensive commercial drones to destroy billions of dollars worth of Russian equipment, and 90% of Russian casualties are from drone attacks.

Adopting the spirit of Drone Dominance, the Marine Corps has been quickly developing its own drone capabilities.

In the past month, the service established the Marine Corps Robotics Integration Group, or MCRIG. The group serves to integrate, standardize and institutionalize training for sUASs and C-sUASs across the total force.

The service also began stockpiling anti-drone ammo, which Marines can load into an M4 or M27 without any modification. However, unlike standard 5.56mm ammo, the anti-drone’s projectile fragments as it flies down range, so it functions similarly to a shot shell.

For intercepting medium to large attack drones, the Marine Corps inked a deal with Allen Control Systems for the Bullfrog M240, which it plans to use to aid air defense. The AI-enabled machine gun is designed to detect, track and automatically fire at aerial threats.

Moving forward, the Marine Corps said it will continue the service level training at Twentynine Palms to ensure Marines have the basic skillset to operate in areas where sUAS may be present. In turn, those who complete the training can share it with their home units.

Companies will be able to request range access even if they do not have an ongoing partnership with the government, according to the release. The effort, the Army says, is designed to hasten the development and testing of drones, counter-drone systems, long-range fires and cheap interceptors.

The service said it is launching four ranges in the U.S. and one internationally. The ranges include Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, West Cibola Range in Arizona, Camp Shelby Joint Forces Training Center in Mississippi, Camp Grayling in Michigan and Africa Multidomain Training and Experimentation Center in Morocco.

“A company with a good idea shouldn’t need a team of lawyers and a program of record just to prove their equipment works,” Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said in the release. “So we fixed that. One front door — testrange.army.mil — a real person to walk you in, and on the other side, everything the modern battlefield demands: contested airspace, degraded signals and the space to test at real scale.”

The move comes as the Pentagon implements sweeping changes to speed up drone and counter-drone acquisition. The Defense Department created the Joint Interagency Task Force 401, a unit charged with streamlining counter-drone efforts, which recently launched an online marketplace.

It also follows reports that the U.S. has depleted around two-thirds of the Patriot missile interceptor inventory it had before the country’s war with Iran. Though Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth disputed a CNN report that said military commanders had warned U.S. interceptor stockpiles were critically depleted, the Pentagon is pressing the defense industry to expedite the production of critical weapons.

Companies can request to use the ranges using an online portal, but the service cannot guarantee a specific location or timeline. The website includes range parameters and a list of capabilities that can be tested at each site.

Additionally, the Army announced that Camp Grayling will host an “electromagnetic unreliability test event” for the private sector beginning in September and then likely on a quarterly recurring basis. The event will simulate conditions seen in Ukraine during the country’s ongoing war with Russia.

Dugway Proving Ground, for instance, offers long-range fires testing, while West Cibola Range is currently only available for drone and counter-drone assessments.

The initiative has been led by the U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command in collaboration with the Mississippi and Michigan National Guard and U.S. Africa Command, according to the release.

Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, will receive 26 HH-60Ws, an advanced combat search and rescue helicopter, to replace their 26 UH-1N medium utility helicopters, according to a Wednesday release.

As part of the transition to the HH-60W “Whiskey,” the base will gain 60 active-duty manpower positions, per the statement.

JBA will stand up the 5th Helicopter Squadron on Aug. 27 as the first unit on base to receive the new helicopters. The 1st Helicopter Squadron will continue to fly the Hueys until it converts to the Whiskey mission. The release did not specify when that switch would occur.

Both squadrons are tasked with supporting contingency response operations for the federal government, defense support of civil authorities and senior leadership transportation, according to the announcement.

The announcement comes a month after a UH-1N Huey from JBA’s 1st Helicopter Squadron made an emergency landing in Washington, D.C., after the crew reported “vibrating mechanical sounds” while in flight.

“The current UH-1N fleet is 49 to 59 years old and lacks the speed, range, and lift capacity required to provide cost-effective, modern mission support,” the release states.

“The HH-60W delivers significant increases in payload capacity, maximum airspeed, and mission range to ensure the aircraft can meet tasked mission requirements,” the statement continues.

Operational capability of the HH-60Ws is slated for 2030, the release says.

Andrews, located in Prince George’s County, is home to the presidential Air Force One and the 89th Airlift Wing, which provides airlift and communications for the president, vice president, cabinet members and senior leaders.

As warfare continues to be shaped by AI, autonomy and cyber operations, the Department of the Air Force should invest in targeted “just-in-time” training for officer and warrant officer airmen and guardians, according to a Tuesday report published by the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit research institute based in Arlington, Virginia.

“In an era of constrained resources, technological fluency may increasingly need to be treated as a core element of warfighter readiness, not a niche skill or one-time educational requirement,” the report reads.

The training should focus on AI, data literacy and cyber-enabled operations, according to RAND. The authors argue that the framework could also be applied to enlisted and civilian personnel down the line to offer a force-wide approach to AI integration.

A “stackable, scaffolded continuous” training through a certificate model in AI and advanced technologies could be beneficial to officers because it allows for a measurable pathway for technology fluency and tailors training while reducing costs to the department, per the report.

Stackable certificates can be incorporated into the department’s existing training and education systems through implementing the programs tailored to career fields and mission areas that need a technological skill set as well as updating professional military education, or PME, curricula to include the stackable certificates, according to the report.

“As AI and advanced technologies increasingly shape military effectiveness, airmen and guardians must be prepared not only to operate alongside these capabilities but also to lead with them,” the authors say.

A stackable certificate is part of a sequence of credentials that can be built up over time to increase an individual’s qualifications and allow them to work up a career ladder, according to the Department of Labor.

A lack of assessments of stackable certificates in military or government organizations leads the authors to recommend pilot programs and outcome assessments before implementing stackable certificate programs at scale.

The paper argues that the use of stackable certificates in training and existing PME is well aligned with the department’s reestablished warrant officer group.

“WOs can leverage stackable certificates to complete ongoing training on AI, advanced technologies, cyber capabilities, and other mission-specific requirements while assigned to their units and performing their standard duties,” the report says.

The authors recommend that the department assess whether ongoing and advanced technical training fits within the realm of service members’ primary responsibilities and in which method it can best be delivered. The department should also consider updating promotion and assignment processes to take the stackable certificates into account to better retain talent and support career growth.

Installed in the nose of a missile or bomb, the seeker locates the target and guides the weapon toward it. Seekers are among the most expensive parts of a guided weapon, and Boeing’s argument is that their cost is what limits how many the military can buy.

Boeing’s Ultra Low-Cost Seeker, or ULCS, is an active seeker, meaning it emits its own radar signal rather than relying on one from an aircraft or a ground station. Boeing built it largely from commercial parts adapted for military use, and it is still in development.

The company said it is looking at using the ULCS in its air and missile defense interceptors, its guided bombs and its cruise missiles, because its design allows for reuse across all three rather than requiring a different seeker for each weapon.

Boeing said the seeker is designed for strikes from the air, land or at sea, in any weather and against moving targets. The company ran several tests on the ULCS earlier this summer.

Engineers checked the sensor design in an anechoic chamber, which absorbs stray signal reflections. The seeker also flew aboard a Beechcraft 1900 over land and water, where Boeing said it found and tracked targets as expected.

At Spaceport America in New Mexico, the seeker tracked a passing drone from a fixed position on the ground. Boeing then mounted it on a rocket standing in for a missile and launched it at a second drone carrying a reflector, which bounced radar back as a full-size target would. Boeing said the seeker survived the acceleration and vibration of every test, and detected and tracked its targets each time.

Reuse across weapons is the major selling point, according to Boeing.

“We are developing ULCS with the goal of sharing a common sensor architecture across several of our programs,” said Bob Ciesla, vice president of Boeing Precision Engagement Systems. He said the seeker is modular and built to an open standard so Boeing can fit it to different weapons and change it later without redesigning it.

Boeing already builds seekers for other weapons, some of them for competitors. The company makes the active radar seeker for the Lockheed Martin PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement interceptor and said it drew on that work for ULCS while aiming to build something cheaper for use against less sophisticated threats.

Steve Wright, Boeing’s senior manager for weapon sensors and advanced guidance, said work remains to be done.

“We still have more work to do, but the rapid testing our teams have completed prove[s] that this capability is real and will fundamentally change how we look at seeker affordability across our programs,” he said.

Boeing said its teams are studying the test data and using the results to shape the next round of work, including several flight tests in 2027 that will attempt to more closely replicate real-world scenarios.

Boeing is not alone in its attempts to exploit modularity. On Aug. 10, Lockheed Martin announced Strigo, a line of radio-frequency sensors, missile datalinks and seeker technologies built around the same modular premise, designed to serve a variety of weapons.

Boeing did not say whether its ULCS is being funded internally or attached to any existing funded weapons program. Nor did it say just how ultra-low the cost of its new seeker will be.

Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg told defense-industry leaders in an Aug. 5 memo that they have 21 days to submit plans for “significantly faster, more aggressive delivery schedules and/or increased production for critical capabilities.”

“Years-long development cycles are not acceptable,” Feinberg wrote. “We must dramatically accelerate our program schedules and expand our production capacity now.”

The memo also asks companies to propose specific capital investments and facility expansions and to explain how they would work with the Pentagon to increase weapons production. Feinberg also called on industry to demonstrate its willingness to “put skin in the game.” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the responses will help inform the department’s fiscal 2028 budget request.

The increased demand comes as the U.S. has used large quantities of advanced munitions during the conflict with Iran, with recent estimates showing declines in stocks of key missile interceptors.

A Center for Strategic and International Studies analysis estimated that U.S. stocks of Patriot interceptors fell from 2,330 before the war with Iran, to between 759 and 827 after the latest round of operations. THAAD interceptor stocks fell from 452 to between 234 and 278.

The Pentagon’s challenge is not identifying how many interceptors have been used, but how quickly they can be replaced. CSIS estimates the delivery timeline for Patriot PAC-3 MSE interceptors at about 42 months and about 53 months for THAAD.

The urgent 21-day deadline was communicated to arms manufacturers like Boeing, Lockheed Martin and RTX.

RTX said in July that it had received its first U.S. domestic production order for GEM-T Patriot interceptors in more than 30 years, in a roughly $442 million Army contract. The order comes as the Pentagon not only seeks to increase production of newer Patriot and THAAD interceptors but also to expand its capacity for the components required to build them.

On July 27, the department announced seven-year framework agreements with industry to expand production of key propulsion components for PAC-3 MSE and THAAD interceptors. L3Harris said its PAC-3 agreement will nearly triple production of a range of propulsion products supporting the interceptor, while its THAAD agreement is intended to quadruple production of key propulsion components.

Feinberg’s memo asks companies to identify the areas where they can increase and accelerate production and delivery, and what would be required from the Pentagon in order to make that happen. The department will use the responses to determine what industry can deliver faster and what additional resources may be needed.

The memo’s scope extends beyond weapons used in the Iran conflict. Feinberg identified 16 critical programs under consideration for accelerated production or increased procurement in the fiscal 2028 review, including the Next Generation Interceptor, the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS), a mobile air defense radar system and a space-based missile-tracking system.

Consequently, DARPA wants a hypersonic scramjet cruise missile that is capable of evading enemy interceptors.

“Future U.S. military operations face increasingly significant challenges from the rapid proliferation and advancement of highly capable Integrated Air Defense Systems (IADS) by peer adversaries,” warned DARPA’s Request for Information, which is due October 6. “These systems threaten to restrict the operational freedom of U.S. forces and diminish the effectiveness of current stand-off strike capabilities.”

The Next Generation Hypersonic Cruise Missile, or NGHCM, aims to demonstrate that it is possible to develop a cruise missile that is both survivable and affordable enough to be manufactured in large quantities.

“This demonstrator must establish the foundation for a next-generation capability that delivers a revolutionary leap in operational performance—specifically in range, cruise speed, and/or altitude,” DARPA said. “DARPA strongly encourages responses to this RFI from non-traditional defense contractors and emerging technology developers.”

The RFI asks companies to address three “focus areas.” The first is the overall missile concept.

“How does the architecture balance advancements in foundational physical parameters (payload, range, speed, altitude) against other critical factors (e.g., midcourse maneuverability, signature, or platform capacity) to achieve a revolutionary leap in mission effectiveness and survivability?” the RFI asks.

The missile’s launch platform is another consideration. Potential options listed in the RFI include tactical fighters, external or internal mounts on heavy bombers, surface-based vertical launch systems, and “Heavy Ground-Launch / Strategic Defense Class” platforms that would “maximize the range/payload advantages of an airbreathing cruiser paradigm at larger scales.”

DARPA is also looking for a weapon that could be quickly fielded. Companies are asked to “identify an optimized, accelerated schedule to reach first flight for the major technical milestones and review gates, rather than relying on traditional, sluggish acquisition models.”

The second focus area involves demonstrating technologies such as “air-breathing propulsion systems, high energy density fuels, advanced booster technologies, high-temperature materials, thermal management solutions, and high-performance power generation/ actuation/fuel systems.”

The third focus area seeks innovative ways to test the missile quickly. While the RFI doesn’t specify technical parameters, it does note that testing should address “the ability to scale to different missions and distances from 250 nautical miles – 2000 nautical miles.”

The RFI does not specify a speed requirement, although hypersonic is defined as an object traveling faster than Mach 5.

DARPA also wants a hypersonic missile that can be tested without drawing too much attention.

“These concepts should advance the state-of-the-art for collecting critical flight test data allowing for rapid deployment and execution while providing fewer observable indicators of imminent testing,” the RFI said.

Russia has already fielded a hypersonic scramjet cruise missile in the form of the 3M22 Zircon.

Russia has launched Zircons at Ukraine, and Ukraine claims to have downed some of them with U.S.-made Patriot interceptors.