The airlifter, tail number 01-0194, assigned to the 445th Airlift Wing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, was parked overnight at Perot Field Fort Worth Alliance Airport in Texas on March 4, 2025, when severe storms and microbursts of up to 80 mph sent two private Bombardier Challenger jets careening into it.

Video shot that morning showed one of the business jets come to rest beneath the C-17’s wing. The same storm system damaged numerous aircraft at airports across the metroplex.

The collision damaged the C-17’s left-side door, fuselage and nose. The crew flew it home with a Boeing-qualified and Air Force-approved temporary nose panel and landing gear down.

Back in Ohio, maintainers repaired the door and fuselage but determined the left nose panel had to be replaced, which is where the job stalled.

Boeing was unable to find a vendor willing to build tooling for a single nose panel, according to the Air Force. After an unsuccessful repair attempt, the jet was looking at a year in storage followed by another year of repair work, sidelining one of only nine C-17s the wing counts as mission-essential.

The wing turned to the Air Force Rapid Sustainment Office (RSO), a Life Cycle Management Center division at Wright-Patterson that hunts for ways to fabricate parts the supply chain can’t deliver.

Engineers there deemed the panel a good candidate for incremental sheet forming, or ISF, in which a robot presses a flat metal sheet into shape a little at a time. Because the machine follows a digital path rather than a mold, tooling is unnecessary.

Working with the University of Dayton Research Institute, the team began production in January 2026. Boeing, along with maintainers from the wing, installed the finished panel in July, and 01-0194 took to the skies again July 30, nearly 17 months after the storm.

“This is a tremendous win for our maintenance group,” Col. Karen Gharst, the 445th Maintenance Group commander, said in a statement. “Using the ISF technology to rapidly produce an otherwise unobtainable part allowed us to avoid a prolonged work stoppage.”

The event marks the first incrementally formed part to fly on an Air Force aircraft.

Boeing closed the C-17 line in 2015, and the Air Force expects to fly the fleet into the 2070s, meaning this may not be the last time the service has to hunt for parts nobody makes anymore.

The RSO is currently working on parts for a KC-135 and an F-15.

Boeing’s BSU-111/B Payload Delivery Unit is a wing-and-turbojet engine kit that converts a 500-pound Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) into a long-range JDAM (JDAM LR) dubbed the GBU-75. The result is a gravity bomb with the reach of a cruise missile.

Boeing said it has spent nearly $100 million of its own money on the program.

“Scaling production of the GBU-75 will provide the fleet with an affordable, sustainable solution designed to eliminate long-range land and sea-based threats to U.S. and international forces,” said Bob Ciesla, vice president of Boeing Precision Engagement Systems.

The BSU-111/B wing-and-engine kit is the latest modification to the JDAM family, which has previously seen the gravity bomb receive a tail kit that steered it roughly 15 nautical miles and a wing kit that further stretched that distance to 40.

The Kratos-designed TDI-J85 engine pushes that past 300.

The JDAM LR’s capabilities go beyond land strikes. The QuickStrike Long Range mining variant pairs it with a bomb carrying a ship-tracking sensor. Boeing has shown concepts loading large numbers onto Air Force bombers, though no Air Force buy has been announced.

The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, buys JDAM for both the Air Force and U.S. Navy. The first GBU-75s are bound for the Navy.

The Navy demonstrated the weapon back in April, when Super Hornets released two JDAM LRs over the Point Mugu Sea Range off California.

The April 1 round separated cleanly, fired up its engine and flew 34 minutes before landing within meters of its target. The April 3 round added altitude changes and maneuvering. Each covered roughly 200 nautical miles.

When announcing those tests in April, Capt. Sarah Abbott, the Navy’s Precision Strike Weapons program manager, emphasized the need to give the fleet’s JDAMs greater standoff range.

“As Naval Air Forces in theater continue to rely heavily on JDAM systems, the program recognizes a critical need to provide the fleet with greater standoff range,” she said. “This new capability allows pilots to engage targets from significantly safer distances, maintaining a tactical advantage in contested environments.”

Reusing existing infrastructure is a key aspect of the program’s appeal.

Navy budget documents describe JDAM LR as a modification to the baseline program, built on the existing production line and guidance hardware. Any jet that can drop a conventional JDAM can carry the new variant without modification, according to Boeing’s release.

The award, which had not appeared in the Pentagon’s daily contract announcements as of Aug. 5, is an undefinitized action, meaning Boeing began work before the two sides agreed on a price. The Government Accountability Office has long called these contracts risky because contractors are reimbursed for allowable costs, regardless.

Boeing’s release did not say how many GBU-75s the contract buys, how much they cost or when deliveries begin.

The missiles are principally the Army’s surface-to-surface weapons, known as Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM). The U.S. has used “virtually all” of these weapons, according to two of the sources.

The degree to which the military is running out of ATACMS and Precision Strike Missiles has not been previously reported.

The long-range munitions are an important part of the military’s arsenal, allowing accurate strikes from a safe distance. U.S.-supplied ATACMS have played a key role in the war in Ukraine, allowing Ukrainian forces to attack targets inside Russia. The PrSM is a newer, more advanced generation that will replace the ATACMS, which have a shorter range.

Analysts say such weapons — which cost over $1 million each — would also be important in any conflict with China.

The sources declined to say how many of each munition the U.S. had left.

President Donald Trump launched the Iran war jointly with Israel in February, predicting that the conflict would last a short time.

But as the war drags on, the three people familiar with the matter expressed worry that the falling missile supplies could limit the U.S. ability to deter adversaries, including Russia and China.

A fourth person familiar with the matter said that while Central Command — which oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East — has nearly used up the land-based missiles it had before the war began, it has been able to reload from U.S. military supplies elsewhere in the world.

The sources interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Asked for comment on the stockpile data, the White House issued a statement from Trump, saying the U.S. had “far more munitions than anyone in the world” and “far more than we need.”

“Our defense companies are, at this moment, making more munitions than they have ever made before, in addition to expanding their plants and equipment at record levels,” Trump said.

Analysts agree that certain munitions, including artillery shells and several types of missiles, are being produced at record levels but caution that supplies might far short of what is needed for a prolonged war.

Lockheed Martin, which makes the ATACMs and PrSMs, along with the anti-ballistic missile THAAD system, did not immediately respond to questions about Trump’s statements or about supply levels.

Raytheon, which makes Tomahawk missiles and Patriot interceptors, two important U.S. weapons, also did not immediately respond.

Responding to a request for comment, chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said: “America’s military is the most powerful in the world and has everything it needs to execute at the time and place of the President’s choosing. We have executed multiple successful operations across combatant commands while ensuring the U.S. military possesses a deep arsenal of capabilities to protect our people and our interests.”

The supply figures have circulated inside the federal government over the last week during tense conversations inside the Trump administration about how much longer the U.S. can continue striking Iran without drawing down the stockpile to levels that would limit the military’s ability to respond to crises elsewhere.

WARNINGS OVER WEAPONS SUPPLIES

One of the sources said the drawdown of the ATACMS and PrSM stockpiles reflected a decision by the Trump administration to avoid riskier ways of attacking Iranian targets, such as by using piloted aircraft to drop bombs.

Because these weapons allow the military to attack targets from a distance, analysts say they would be valuable in a war against an adversary with strong air defenses, such as China.

They have been used to strike targets inside Iran, according to a March report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

According to the report, PrSM stockpiles were low to start with, since it is a relatively new munition, but the U.S. military has ordered a large number of them for 2027. The Army has said that ATACMS are being phased out and that production is shifting to the newer PrSM missiles.

Military leaders have for weeks warned the president that stockpiles of defensive weapons — including Patriot interceptors, which are effective against ballistic missiles — were dwindling, said two of the sources.

Last week, several media outlets reported Trump had decided not to launch another massive offensive inside Iran in part because his military advisers had warned about the U.S. stockpile.

A U.S. official disputed those accounts, saying Trump chose not to move forward with another attack because of pressure from Gulf states.

The Middle East conflict has sparked intense debate about Trump’s authority to prosecute hostilities against Iran without congressional authorization. No request for a declaration of war or an authorization to use military force has been submitted to Congress.

DEFENSIVE WEAPON STOCKS ARE ALSO DIMINISHED

Last week, CSIS published a report estimating that between February and July about 65% of Patriot interceptors had been expended and that the number of THAAD ballistic missile interceptors in U.S. stockpiles was at least 38% lower than at the start of the war.

Patriots and THAADs are systems that detect and destroy incoming missiles and are among the most effective in the country’s arsenal.

While Reuters has not seen the supply figures, those numbers match internal U.S. data, two of the sources said.

The U.S. also burned through a little less than half of its global supply of Tomahawk cruise missiles, which are generally launched from ships, since the start of the war, one of the sources said.

Reuters could not independently verify that number.

The Tomahawk is a Navy weapon, launched from destroyers, cruisers and submarines, and has long served as the sea service’s principal means of striking heavily defended targets without risking pilots.

Raytheon, a unit of RTX, has reached a tentative multi-year agreement with the Pentagon aimed at boosting Tomahawk production, alongside increases in other munitions, as Washington races to rebuild stockpiles.

“The current industrial base has demonstrated significant challenges, including production delays, quality control issues, and critical obsolescence (i.e., diminishing manufacturing sources and material shortages) across key engine components,” warned the Air Force’s Request for Information. The deadline is Aug. 28.

“The government will pursue a strategic competition requiring industry to innovate manufacturing and guarantee supply chain resiliency,” the RFI said.

The initiative comes as the Air Force struggles with its jet engines.

For example, F-35 fighter deliveries and upgrades have been delayed by engine issues, with a Government Accountability Office report noting last year that “the engine contractor is still not delivering engines to contract specifications after 20 years of production.”

Meanwhile, B-52 modernization has been stalled in part by engine issues that have raised costs by $3 billion and delayed initial operational capability by 15 months, according to GAO.

In turn, the Air Force is now embarking on a multiyear fighter engine procurement project that envisions more than 180 engines per year by 2034. The RFI specifically cites engines for the F-15EX and F-16.

The RFI promises “five foundational pillars designed to drive a paradigm shift in engine procurement and sustainment,” as the government shifts from “legacy procurement toward incentivizing industry-led technological evolution and capacity expansion.” These include “holding vendors accountable” for delivering new engines that are more capable, reliable and cheaper.

The Air Force will focus “on the total lifecycle cost of the engine, not just the initial purchase price.”

Contractors are also responsible for ensuring reliable supply chains.

“We will implement an acquisition strategy that prioritizes ease of maintenance and establishes a resilient, sustainable supply chain from day one,” the Air Force said. “This effort is designed to solve key fleet-level issues by requiring a newer engine with improved supportability.”

“The result is a streamlined logistics footprint that reduces downtime, lowers the burden on our maintainers, and ensures the continuous flow of parts and support to maximize flightline readiness.”

Ultimately, the question is whether the U.S. defense industrial base can deliver. The Air Force intends to “enforce stringent producibility requirements.”

“We will select a partner capable of scaling production to meet surge requirements, guaranteeing a steady and uninterrupted supply of engines for USAF/FMS [Foreign Military Sales] aircraft (e.g. F-15EX and F-16) programs,” the RFI reads.

Companies responding to the RFI are asked to provide a variety of details, such as a timeline for developing and manufacturing an engine. They should also specify “at what minimum volume your supply chain can justify private capital investments (such as facility expansion, tooling modernization, or advanced automation) and how those investments will structurally lower your long-term unit costs.”

With nations competing to obtain raw materials — and China restricting sales of rare earths — the Air Force wants to be certain manufacturers can find the raw materials they need.

“From your company’s market perspective, what are the primary raw material constraints (e.g., specialized titanium/nickel alloys) or manufacturing process bottlenecks (e.g., advanced casting or forging capacity) that pose the highest risk to scaling up fighter engine production?” the RFI asks.

As the service projects to spend $21 billion in modernizations for 76 active long-range strategic bombers, the Government Accountability Office argues that advancing such efforts, such as new engines, with “little to no” developmental flight testing will increase the risk that the system will not function as desired.

The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress has been in service since 1955 and was originally given a life expectancy of 20 years. The Air Force now expects to utilize the aircraft, which can conduct conventional and nuclear bombing missions, through 2050.

“The scope of the cumulative B-52 modernization effort, combined with the inherent complexity associated with simultaneously executing multiple independent and concurrent programs, results in technical, programmatic, and operational challenges for the entire community tasked to develop, integrate, test, and field these upgrades,” the report says.

Ten of 13 modernization efforts are experiencing cost, schedule or performance challenges.

In particular, since 2023, the engine replacement, which is the largest and most expensive upgrade, faced a cost increase of around $3 billion and delayed operational capability by more than 15 months because the Air Force proceeded with the production with minimal developmental flight testing, the report reads.

The GAO said the service is also not consistently using digital engineering tools that provide real-time data that access overall performance for decision makers, causing the Air Force to potentially miss opportunities to for efficiencies that would help avoid future sustainment and supportability issues.

The current maintenance plans of bringing B-52s to a repair depot every four years does not account for possible schedule delays from the Commercial Engine Replacement Program, or CERP.

“B-52 maintenance is already struggling with finding sufficient parts for the current engines,” the report says. “Without planning for the possibility of engine delays from CERP, the Air Force risks falling behind on planned B-52 maintenance, which could impact readiness.”

The GAO made six recommendations to the Air Force to improve B-52 planning and management, including delaying the CERP production until the program office analyzes the associated risks, as well as updating sustainment plans and evaluating the benefits of using digital engineering.

After decades of relying on the U.S.-made Patriot interceptor system and its hit-to-kill PAC-3 munition as the most proven air defense against ballistic missiles, three new tracks are now leveraging international cooperation and a dire global need to develop and manufacture cheaper interceptor platforms.

Some officials, meanwhile, are hoping the sense of urgency leads to the fielding of the first new prototypes by the end of 2026 — years faster than today’s Patriots can be made.

It’s an ambitious ask.

The missile defense world has long described the mechanics behind anti-ballistic defense as akin to hitting a bullet out of the sky with another bullet, multiplied in difficulty by the number of simultaneous air threats coming in — a stark reminder of the mass air raids seen today in Iran and Ukraine that stretch air defenses to the breaking point.

Today’s anti-ballistic momentum began with U.S. President Donald Trump’s seemingly off-the-cuff comment at the NATO summit in Ankara earlier this month, when he pledged to grant 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 that make the system’s components, primarily Lockheed Martin, had not yet been consulted on the plan.

Five days later, Ukraine and nine European countries launched a coalition in Paris to field Freyja, an entirely new anti-ballistic system centered on a Ukrainian interceptor priced at roughly one-fifth of a Patriot round.

A week after that, Lockheed Martin unveiled a cheaper, faster-to-produce Patriot missile of its own. And on Wednesday, the company announced the Pentagon had awarded it another $53.86 billion for PAC-3 production, bringing its multiyear deal up to $58.62 billion and aiming to triple production capacity by the end of 2030.

The new anti-ballistics arms race has manifested largely as a result of the munitions shortage created by the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, during which American forces have fired at least 1,060 to 1,430 Patriots at roughly $3.9 million apiece, draining an estimated two-thirds of America’s pre-war Patriot inventory, according to a new analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The diminished stockpile is compounded by the ongoing war in Ukraine, where ballistic missiles are the only threat Kyiv still needs help taking down and the one munition it has completely run out of.

With three new anti-ballistic tracks opened in July alone, NATO and its allies are aiming to shore up air defenses as quickly as possible.

Here is where the primary Patriot interceptor stands, and how the three new alternative pathways in the arms race stack up.

The standard: The Patriot interceptor

The Patriot, the U.S.-made gold standard of ground-based air defense, pairs a radar, a command post and launchers with two families of interceptor missiles, each fielded in several variants.

Lockheed Martin builds the PAC-3 MSE, the hit-to-kill round that rams ballistic missiles out of the sky, while Raytheon, which also makes the Patriot’s radars and ground systems, builds the older PAC-2 GEM-T, a round that explodes near its target and works best against aircraft and cruise missiles.

The MSE is the only Western munition that has reliably killed Russian ballistic missiles — from Iskanders to modified S-300s — in Ukrainian service. It has even downed the air-launched Kinzhal, which flies at hypersonic speeds.

That record is why the Pentagon on Wednesday awarded Lockheed a multiyear deal now worth up to $58.62 billion to triple production capacity by the end of 2030. Today, each round costs roughly $3.9 million.

“This is a once-in-a-generation moment, and we are moving with wartime urgency to deliver the Arsenal of Freedom,” Lockheed chairman and CEO Jim Taiclet said in a statement.

The grant: Ukrainian PAC-3s under US license

Trump’s pledge in Turkey would make Ukraine only the second country outside the U.S. licensed to build Patriot missiles, after Japan, which has produced them under license for decades.

Germany, the Netherlands and Spain are only now standing up a joint production line. Berlin is negotiating a license of its own and Germany’s existing GEM-T work runs through a joint venture with Raytheon rather than a national license, according to The Associated Press.

The license under discussion for Kyiv would likely cover the missiles — rather than complete batteries — and could mean final assembly from imported component kits instead of production from scratch, the AP reported.

Poland has offered to host the joint production on its territory for safety and security reasons, according to Polish news agency PAP.

“It is about securing this production, so that this production takes place in a safe location,” Polish Deputy Defense Minister Magdalena Sobkowiak-Czarnecka said in Washington on July 23.

Zelenskyy said he met with Lockheed Martin representatives while visiting the U.S. for Sen. Lindsey Graham’s funeral on July 28, posting on Telegram that “Our teams are already working on specific solutions to move to joint production as soon as possible.”

The cost of the licensed PAC-3, meanwhile, would stay the same at close $4 million per round.

Yehor Chernev, deputy chairman of the Rada’s committee on national security, defense and intelligence, estimates Ukraine needs at least 18 to 24 months to launch a first pilot production line, “followed by more time to complete the first weapons,” per The Associated Press.

Zelenskyy is pushing for even faster joint production.

“We expect that by the end of 2026, our Ukrainian team will have the technical capability to produce U.S. missiles,” he said on July 15.

The analogue: Freyja

Freyja is a full Patriot-style anti-ballistic system that includes an interceptor, launcher, radar and command-and-control network.

The system, designed by Kyiv startup Fire Point, is built around its FP-7.X interceptor missile and various capabilities supplied by European partners.

Zelenskyy called Freyja “an analogue of Patriot, but a system for more mass production and a cheaper system.”

His comments came as he formally launched the Integrated Anti-Ballistic Missile Coalition in Paris on July 13 alongside nine other countries, including Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

The FP-7.X flew for the first time in early June and is built to kill ballistic targets at roughly 15 miles up using a high-explosive fragmentation warhead rather than the PAC-3’s hit-to-kill collision — which may come in later versions — at a target price of approximately $700,000 per interceptor, or roughly one-fifth the price of a PAC-3.

The company says it will build three interceptors a day starting in August. Zelenskyy wants the system up and running within 12 months, and the coalition is targeting its first real ballistic intercept for the end of 2027.

“We have an ambitious goal: to have an MVP ready by the first half of next year,” Davyd Aloian, deputy secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, told Reuters on July 27. “That is a prototype that can already demonstrate its first practical results.”

The Lockheed cost-cutter: PAC-3 ACE

Lockheed unveiled the PAC-3 Adapted Capability Effector, or ACE, at the Farnborough International Airshow on July 20.

Built on the PAC-3’s fire-control system and fully linked to the Patriot and the Integrated Battle Command System that allied air defenders already run, it is designed to counter airbreathing threats — meaning weapons that rely on oxygen for propulsion — along with cruise missiles and close- and short-range ballistic missiles, a tier below the high-end targets the MSE was built to counter.

“American and allied warfighters need a solution that is battle-tested and budget-smart, and PAC-3 ACE delivers exactly that by building on the unrivaled performance of the PAC-3 MSE,” Tim Cahill, president of Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, said in the announcement.

Lockheed says it will develop and produce the round jointly with American and European industry partners.

International manufacturing is also under consideration, with the munition’s first flight expected in early 2028.

The company advertises ACE at less than half the price of an MSE, or roughly $2 million a round, without disclosing an exact figure.

The program, described as “extreme teaming” with industry partners, entered the phase with “unprecedented maturity,” Gen. Dale White, director of Critical Major Weapon Systems, said in a Wednesday keynote address at an event in Dayton, Ohio.

The engineering and manufacturing phase includes maturing, integrating and testing all parts of the F-47. It will produce a small number of test aircraft for evaluation and includes priced options for low-rate initial production. White did not specify the number of test aircraft being produced.

The first Boeing F-47 is on track for its first flight in 2028. The Air Force plans to buy at least 185 F-47s, matching the size of the F-22 Raptor fleet it intends to replace.

“The F-47 will fly in this administration,” White said during his speech at the Life Cycle Industry Days, hosted by the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center.

White, who also acts as direct reporting portfolio manager to the deputy defense secretary, is tasked with managing weapons systems, such as the F-47 and B-21 programs.

In March 2025, President Donald Trump announced that the force will proceed with development of sixth-generation Boeing F-47s under the Next Generation Air Dominance program, or NGAD, intended to replace the F-22 Raptor.

“In terms of all of the attributes of a fighter jet, there’s never been anything even close to it, from speed to maneuverability, to what it can have, to payload,” Trump said at the time, insisting that the aircraft will be built and in the air during his administration.

“And this has been in the works for a long period of time,” he continued. “America’s enemies will never see it coming.”

NGAD is a “family of systems” that includes the F-47 and Collaborative Combat Aircraft designed to achieve air superiority. The F-47’s modular design is intended to accommodate emerging technology and integrate long-range strike capabilities to counter threats in contested environments.

The F-47 program was allotted $3.45 billion in fiscal year 2026 funding and over $5 billion in the fiscal 2027 budget request.

B-21 Raiders, the service’s long-range stealth bombers currently in initial production, will be “on the ramp” at Ellsworth Air Force Base next year, Gen. Dale White, director of Critical Major Weapon Systems, said in a Wednesday keynote address at an event in Dayton, Ohio.

White, who also acts as direct reporting portfolio manager to the deputy defense secretary, is tasked with managing weapons systems, such as the F-47 and B-21 programs.

At the Life Cycle Industry Days, hosted by the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, White confirmed that the first operational aircraft of the stealth bombers are on track for a 2027 Ellsworth delivery as initially projected in February.

The program, which White deemed “the physical proof our warfighting-focused acquisition mindset can and will work,” has increased its production capacity by 25%, boosting its delivery timeline.

The deal between the Air Force and Northrop Gumman, the defense company tasked with B-21 manufacturing in a 2024 contract award, first bolstered the program with already authorized funding of $4.5 billion in a reconciliation bill, which was signed in fiscal 2025 as the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” part of the Pentagon’s fiscal 2026 defense budget.

For fiscal 2027, the historic $1.5 trillion budget request proposes $6.1 billion for the B-21 program.

The first next-generation stealth bomber began flight testing in 2023 at Edwards Air Force Base, California, with the second following in 2025 as the force moved to integrate weapons and critical mission systems into the aircraft.

The program contains a gradual increase in production, with an eventual production rate of approximately seven aircraft every year.

The force seeks at least 100 B-21s to replace the aging B-1B Lancer and B-2 Spirit fleets in the coming decades.

“This is what disciplined acquisition delivers,” White said in a February release announcing the expanded production capacity. “This decision reflects our confidence in the program’s performance and the stability of the industrial base. By increasing production capacity now, we are responsibly accelerating delivery of a critical, combat-effective capability to the warfighter.”

The Defense Department has put out a solicitation for robot boats that are capable of launching small attack drones — with technology mature enough to be deployed to the field within 120 days.

The goal for the Suitable Warfighting Adaptive Payloads, or SWAP-USV, project is to find “mature, market-ready [unmanned surface vessels] fully integrated with two or more mature, market-ready aerial drones to detect, identify, track, and defeat hostile threats,” according to the Defense Innovation Unit solicitation. The call out set a response deadline of Aug. 10.

To make this happen, DIU created a year-long contest backed by $100 million in prize money. DIU wants to “partner with established maritime manufacturers, autonomy developers, sensor manufacturers, and UAS developers to execute a multi-phase Prize Challenge.”

The SWAP-USV project is billed as a solution to a problem that has also plagued missile and drone defense on land: the economics favor the offense.

“The cost-exchange ratio for detecting and neutralizing asymmetric maritime threats in contested environments is heavily skewed in favor of the adversary,” the DIU solicitation states. Nor can the U.S. military continue to rely “on exquisite, multi-million-dollar naval and aviation assets to intercept these inexpensive targets.”

The solicitation paints the picture of a drone boat that can carry, launch and control at least two small UAVs. The UAVs together should be capable of conducting kinetic strikes with a combined payload of at least 2 kilograms, or just over 4 pounds.

DIU wants a mix of recoverable and one-way attack drones that can patrol ocean, coastal and riverine waters, and loiter on station. The drones, according to the solicitation, should “support one or more operational effects, including ISR, comms relay, electronic warfare, payload delivery, or precision engagement of moving or stationary, as applicable, under operator command.”

The Pentagon also wants the system to be mobile enough to fit into a standard cargo container, on road trailers or on C-17 and C-130 transports.

“Solutions that can launch from unimproved locations or provide additional launch flexibility, i.e. remotely from a container, will be looked upon favorably,” DIU noted, adding that the UAVs should be “technically mature and have an established production line.”

Interestingly, among the maritime threats the DIU solicitation cites are “‘go-fast’ smuggling boats, and semi-submersibles.” Drug cartels have used semi-submersibles to transport contraband from South America to the U.S., and such pseudo-submarines are hard to detect.

The SWAP-USV project calls for robot craft capable of “autonomous surveillance and interdiction of defined maritime operating areas, maximizing operational coverage, probability of detection, interdiction effectiveness, and time on station while minimizing daily operating cost, logistics burden, and required personnel.”

The surveillance elements of the solicitation state that the drone boat must be able to “autonomously follow or shadow a vessel of interest, and autonomously intercept a noncooperative, maneuvering vessel. Autonomous execution of these functions is desired but not required.”

The SWAP-USV Challenge, meanwhile, comprises three “sprints,” or phases, each with separate prize money. To sweeten the pot further, companies that pass the test in each phase will be eligible for procurement contracts backed by a $200 million budget.

Sprint 1 calls for in-water testing in fall 2026, with a goal of deploying a system in the field within 120 days.

“Solutions must include a complete mission ready USV with integrated drone capability system available for testing and evaluation within 29 days of down-selection for Sprint 1,” the solicitation specified. There will be $40 million in prize money.

Sprint 2 will have a fall 2026 deadline and in-water testing in early 2027, with the focus on “expanded payloads, upgraded autonomy, and multi-vendor integrations.” The prize money for that timeframe will also be $40 million.

Sprint 3 will take submissions in early 2027, with in-water testing in summer 2027. The goals of this phase will be announced later, but there will be $20 million in prizes.

Companies must specify which phase they want to join. “The government reserves the right to assign applicants to [Sprint] cohorts based on technical and manufacturing maturity,” the solicitation noted.

The contractor has faced setbacks in delivering two Air Force One aircraft for presidential use by its initial projected timeline due to a lack of properly cleared workers and supply chain issues, causing President Donald Trump to use a Qatari-donated jet in the interim.

Trump first traveled with the modified Qatari aircraft in early July, but just a couple weeks later, revealed that it would be “maxed out” for upgrades since the plane lacks necessary security features, like missile-defense capabilities, for a presidential aircraft.

The absence of the security features caused Trump to instead fly with an older Air Force One out of Turkey after the recent NATO Summit as tensions escalated with Iran.

Plans for the new Boeing VC-25Bs have been in effect for about a decade and were originally slated for 2024, but are now expected in 2028.

The contract was signed in 2018 with a fixed $3.9 billion price tag, but the delays have cost Boeing billions of dollars extra as the company rushes to deliver the jets to the executive airlift fleet alongside the VC-25A and C-32 fleets.

The company attributes the $280 million in second quarter losses on the VC-25B program to an investment in “additional production and certification resources,” per the earning report, but it still anticipates the first delivery to occur in 2028.

The added amount now has caused the entire project to cost over $3.1 billion, according to CNN reporting, but the contract’s ceiling has been altered to $4.5 billion to allow for other equipment.

Boeing’s total second quarter loss was $428 million, a stark increase from the $7 million loss reported in the first quarter.