This Week in Defense: 'Show Me the Money', $35B Contract Award for THAAD

Research evidence excerpt

This Week in Defense: 'Show Me the Money', $35B Contract Award for THAAD

gram directly addresses the cost-curve problem at ◦Why

the center of our munitions supercycle thesis. The Army institutionalizing demand

for mass-producible, sub-$1M interceptors represents a new and potentially large

addressable market for components suppliers including KRMN, KTOS whose structural

and propulsion hardware underpins programs across the interceptor stack. The range

access initiative and Ukraine-mimicking test environments lower the barrier for non-

traditional vendors, which could expand the competitive set but also accelerates the

timeline for any covered name already holding range relationships or fielding counter-

UAS hardware.

• Lockheed Accelerating Production of New Hypersonic Glide Body. To remain competitive

against emerging startups, Lockheed Martin has announced the development of the "Next

Generation Glide Body" (NXGB), an affordable and scalable hypersonic glide body designed

for rapid production. Scheduled for its first flight in late 2027, the system is intended for cross-

domain integration across all U.S. military service branches.

it matters: Hypersonic armament is clearly one of the DoW's pressing initiatives ◦Why

for the next several years. Deficient U.S. inventories in the new category of munition

is creating a concerted push across multiple programs, vendors and service branches

to adapt hypersonics into fieldable systems. For Lockheed, this initiative comes as

the company continues work on existing hypersonic programs such as the AGM-183A

ARRW and Dark Eagle but feels the increasing facing pressure from agile competitors

like Castelion, which YTD are securing awards for mass-producible hypersonic solutions.

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