U.S. Air Power buys extra Norwegian-made stealth missile

The U.S. Air Power awarded Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace, the Norwegian firm that builds the weapon, $98.4 million to supply the subsequent batch of Joint Strike Missiles, with work happening at Kongsberg’s manufacturing unit in Norway and wrapping up by June 30, 2030.

The Joint Strike Missile, identified by its American designation AGM-184A, solves an issue that has quietly nagged on the F-35 program because the stealth fighter first entered service. The jet’s complete design philosophy is determined by carrying weapons inside its physique fairly than hanging them underneath the wings, since something mounted externally dramatically will increase how seen the plane seems on enemy radar, defeating a lot of the purpose of constructing a stealth fighter within the first place.

For years, that internal-carriage requirement meant the F-35 had no true long-range weapon for putting ships or hardened targets from a distance, since bigger missiles just like the AGM-158C Lengthy-Vary Anti-Ship Missile merely don’t match contained in the jet’s inside weapons bay. The Joint Strike Missile, developed by Kongsberg and constructed across the firm’s earlier Naval Strike Missile, was engineered from the beginning particularly to squeeze into that confined house, measuring roughly 13 toes (4 meters) lengthy and weighing about 897 kilos (407 kilograms), together with a 260-pound (118-kilogram) warhead, dimensions dictated solely by the F-35’s inside bay fairly than by pure efficiency targets.

As soon as launched, the missile can journey greater than 217 miles (350 kilometers) at excessive subsonic velocity, utilizing GPS and inertial navigation to succeed in the overall goal space earlier than switching to an imaging infrared seeker for exact concentrating on within the missile’s remaining strategy, a steerage mixture that lets it distinguish its supposed goal from decoys or close by objects within the closing seconds of flight. That vary lets an F-35 launch the missile from nicely exterior the attain of many fashionable ship-based air protection methods, then let the weapon fly a low, evasive path towards its goal fairly than approaching in a straight, predictable line.

This new $98.4 million award covers what the Air Power calls Lot Three B, the newest increment in a manufacturing schedule that has steadily grown because the service first dedicated to the missile. The Air Power positioned its preliminary order for the Joint Strike Missile in 2024, then adopted with a $240.9 million Lot Two contract in June 2026 masking full operational rounds, launch containers, take a look at {hardware}, and help tools, with that batch of missiles scheduled for completion by November 2028. Wednesday’s Lot Three B award extends this system roughly 19 months past that earlier deadline, pushing Kongsberg’s Norwegian manufacturing line to maintain working nicely into the subsequent decade because the Air Power continues constructing out its stockpile.

Norway holds a particular place on this program’s historical past, because the nation was each the missile’s authentic developer and the primary nation to truly area it operationally. Norway accomplished its full fleet of 52 F-35A fighters in April 2025 and acquired its first Joint Strike Missiles the identical month, a milestone Norwegian protection officers framed on the time as proof the nation might nonetheless develop cutting-edge weapons expertise regardless of its comparatively small protection finances in comparison with bigger NATO allies. That head begin has translated straight into export success, with Japan, Australia, and the USA all signing on to accumulate the missile within the years since, and Germany becoming a member of the client listing in 2026 after committing to equip its personal F-35A fleet with the weapon. Kongsberg introduced a separate order in June 2026 price roughly $472 million from an undisclosed sixth buyer, a deal the corporate has not but publicly recognized however which underscores how shortly demand for the missile has unfold past its authentic Norwegian and American patrons.

Fiscal 2025 Air Power missile procurement funds cowl the total $98.4 million obligated underneath this contract, and the Air Power Life Cycle Administration Heart at Eglin Air Power Base in Florida is managing the settlement on the federal government’s behalf, the identical workplace that has overseen each prior Joint Strike Missile manufacturing lot the service has bought. The contract takes the type of what the federal government calls a firm-fixed-price modification, that means Kongsberg agreed to ship this batch of missiles for a set value fairly than being reimbursed for prices as they come up, a construction that places the monetary threat of any manufacturing overruns on the producer fairly than the Air Power.

The Joint Strike Missile stays the one weapon of its variety that matches contained in the F-35’s weapons bay, and till a home different reaches that very same stage of maturity, each extra lot the Air Power orders is known as a wager that protecting the stealth fighter stealthy whereas it hunts ships and hardened targets is price outsourcing to the identical nation that solved the issue first.