What Is the AGM-183 ARRW and Why Is It Now in Production?

The U.S. Air Force has ordered the AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon into production, awarding Lockheed Martin a $694 million contract for the boost-glide hypersonic missile designed to be fired from its bombers. The Department of the Air Force announced the award on October 26, almost four weeks after it was signed on September 29 under the Pentagon’s Enterprise-Wide Agile Acquisition Contract. The service withheld how many missiles the contract buys and when they are due to be delivered, citing operational security. The decision makes the ARRW the Air Force’s first hypersonic weapon to formally enter production, a considerable reversal for a program the service had moved to cancel in 2023 after a string of failed flight tests. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink described the award as “a turning point in our advanced weapons roadmap.”

Development began in 2018 with a design contract worth up to $480 million, followed in 2019 by a $988.8 million modification for critical design review and the first captive carry flights under a B-52H over Edwards Air Force Base in California in June that year. The first launch attempt, delayed until April 2021, failed, and two further failures that year led Congress to strip funding for 12 missiles from the fiscal 2022 plan. Although the weapon’s first successful flight followed in May 2022, the Air Force’s then acquisition chief Andrew Hunter stated in March 2023 that the service would not buy the missile once prototyping ended, favouring instead the smaller air-breathing Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile. A B-52 flying from Andersen Air Force Base on Guam fired a live-warhead ARRW in 2024, and the fiscal 2026 budget revived the program with roughly $362 million for procurement, according to Air & Space Forces Magazine.

The production order comes as the United States continues to trail both Russia and China in fielding hypersonic strike weapons, with Russia having used the air-launched Kh-47M2 Kinzhal against Ukraine since March 2022 and, according to Ukrainian officials, fired Zircon missiles at Kiev as recently as October 22, while China first paraded its DF-17 glide vehicle missile in Beijing in October 2019. Regional powers are following, with South Korea having flown its first glide vehicle on October 8. The fiscal 2027 request includes $452 million for ARRW production and a further $296 million for an Increment 2 variant with a terminal seeker and data link, which The War Zone reported is expected to strike moving targets including ships and is linked to the Pacific Deterrence Initiative. Air Force Chief of Staff General Ken Wilsbach stated: “Fielding ARRW enhances our ability to hold targets at risk anywhere around the world.”

The ARRW uses a solid-fuel rocket booster to carry an unpowered glide vehicle to high altitude and hypersonic speed before separating, with the glider then manoeuvring towards its target at more than Mach 5, or at least 6,100 kilometres per hour by Air & Space Forces Magazine’s account. Its range has been reported by Stars and Stripes at about 1,000 miles, roughly 1,600 kilometres, which is several times that of the baseline LRASM anti-ship missile the B-52H is also due to receive. The weapon is too large for most fighters, and the Air Force has stated that it plans to integrate it on the B-52H and the B-1B Lancer, with The War Zone having published imagery of a B-1B carrying the missile during testing.