Four defense companies will soon deliver test missiles to the Pentagon under a new program designed to produce more than 10,000 low-cost cruise missiles before the end of the decade. The Department of War signed framework agreements with Anduril, CoAspire, Leidos, and Zone 5 to launch the Low-Cost Containerized Missiles/Munitions program, known as LCCM, with procurement of test articles set to begin during the current assessment phase. A separate agreement with Castelion targets hypersonic weapons on a parallel track. Together, these deals represent the most concrete step yet in Washington’s push to shift from small batches of expensive precision weapons toward high-volume, affordable strike capacity.
Why a 10,000-missile target changes the Pentagon’s buying strategy
The LCCM program is not a research study or a concept paper. It is a purchasing framework with a stated production goal: more than 10,000 low-cost cruise missiles across 2027 through 2029, according to the War Department. That volume target puts immediate pressure on all four contenders to prove they can manufacture at scale, not just design a capable weapon. The assessment phase now beginning will sort out which companies can actually hit cost and schedule marks when real hardware is on the line.
The selection of Anduril, CoAspire, Leidos, and Zone 5 raises a pointed question about who holds the advantage. Companies that already operate containerized munitions production lines, with tooling, supply chains, and factory floor space in place, face a shorter path to meeting volume thresholds than firms entering the defense manufacturing space for the first time. A 10,000-unit buy spread over roughly three fiscal years demands not just a working prototype but a repeatable, cost-controlled production process. That reality will likely reward existing manufacturing infrastructure over elegant engineering alone.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker signaled strong congressional support for the effort, praising the agreements as a step toward rapidly expanding affordable, mass-produced strike weapons. His public backing matters because appropriations decisions will ultimately determine how fast and how large the program grows. Without sustained funding commitments from Congress, even a well-designed framework agreement can stall between the test phase and full-rate production.
What GHOST, Blackbeard, and the LCCM test buys reveal about the competition
CoAspire offered the most detailed public description of its entry. The company confirmed that its GHOST missile, a boosted, ground-launched variant of the RAACM-ER, will be among the weapons evaluated. CoAspire stated that the Department of War will procure test missiles from the company to lay groundwork for the assessment phase. That language suggests the test purchases are not symbolic. They are meant to generate flight data and production metrics that will inform the larger buy.
The GHOST missile’s lineage as a derivative of an existing air-launched weapon could give CoAspire a head start on cost reduction. Adapting a proven airframe for ground launch typically costs less than designing a new missile from scratch, and it compresses the timeline from contract to first delivery. Existing suppliers, qualification data, and manufacturing processes can often be repurposed, reducing both technical risk and schedule uncertainty. Whether Anduril, Leidos, or Zone 5 hold similar advantages is unclear from public disclosures. None of those three companies have released comparable technical details about their LCCM entries, leaving analysts to infer their approaches from broader company portfolios rather than program-specific information.
On the hypersonic side, Castelion signed a separate framework agreement calling for a minimum of 500 Blackbeard hypersonic missiles per year once testing and validation are complete, with a pathway to thousands more, according to Castelion’s announcement. The Blackbeard program runs on a different track from LCCM, but it shares the same strategic logic: build weapons cheaply enough that the Pentagon can afford to stockpile them in the thousands rather than the hundreds. For hypersonic systems, which have historically been boutique items with eye-watering price tags, the promise of “low-cost” production at hundreds per year would mark a significant shift in how such capabilities are fielded.
The distinction between the two tracks matters for industry. LCCM is a four-way competition where companies will be measured against each other during the assessment phase, with the possibility that not all will advance to large-scale production. The Castelion hypersonic deal is a bilateral agreement with its own production floor and timeline, effectively giving Blackbeard a clearer path from testing to serial manufacture if performance and affordability targets are met. Companies competing in LCCM cannot assume that strong performance will earn them a role in the hypersonic effort, or vice versa, even though both initiatives sit under a broader push for massed, lower-cost munitions.
Gaps in the public record and what to watch through 2027
Several questions remain open. No official release has disclosed unit-cost targets for LCCM missiles. Without a published price ceiling, it is difficult to judge whether the 10,000-missile goal implies weapons that cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars each or pushes closer to the low six-figure range. That distinction will determine how transformative the program really is. A large buy of modestly cheaper cruise missiles would still improve inventory depth, but it would not fundamentally remake the economics of long-range strike.
There is also little public information about how the Pentagon will apportion the eventual production award. The framework agreements allow for multiple vendors, but they do not guarantee that all four companies will share equally in the 10,000-missile objective. Officials could choose a winner-take-most model, where one design becomes the dominant round with smaller tranches allocated to others for niche roles or surge capacity. Alternatively, they could deliberately split the buy to preserve competition, hedge against supply disruptions, and avoid single points of failure in production.
Another unresolved issue is how LCCM rounds will be integrated with existing launch platforms. The program’s emphasis on containerized munitions suggests compatibility with standard shipping containers, truck-based launchers, or expeditionary batteries that can be rapidly deployed and concealed. Yet the Department of War has not detailed which units will field the first missiles, how they will be networked for targeting, or what command-and-control concepts will govern large-scale use. Those choices will shape everything from training pipelines to how many missiles a combatant commander can realistically employ in a single operation.
On the hypersonic front, Blackbeard’s promised production ramp raises its own set of questions. Castelion’s framework envisions at least 500 missiles per year once the system is validated, but the timing and criteria for that validation remain undefined in public documents. Hypersonic weapons impose demanding requirements on materials, propulsion, and testing infrastructure, and scaling from prototypes to hundreds of rounds annually has historically proven difficult. Observers will be watching for early flight-test data, indications of how often the system can be exercised, and whether the company can hold to its “low-cost” framing as production scales.
Between now and 2027, several milestones will help clarify whether these ambitious volume targets are realistic. First, the initial batches of LCCM test articles must demonstrate reliable performance and survivable guidance in representative conditions. Second, the four companies will need to show credible manufacturing plans, including supply-chain resilience for key components like propulsion systems and seekers. Third, Congress will have to translate enthusiasm into appropriations that match the scale of the Department of War’s stated goals.
If those elements align, LCCM and Blackbeard could mark the beginning of a new era in which the United States fields large arsenals of comparatively affordable precision weapons, rather than relying on smaller stocks of exquisite but scarce munitions. If they do not, the programs risk joining a long list of well-intentioned initiatives that faltered between prototype and production. For now, the framework agreements and early test buys signal that the Pentagon is at least attempting to move from rhetoric about industrial-scale warfare to contracts that demand it.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
