PrSM Missile Range: How Far Can the Precision Strike Missile Fly?

The PrSM is a ground-launched, surface-to-surface missile that the U.S. Army is buying to replace the MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) as its deep-strike weapon. Lockheed Martin builds it at its plant in Camden, Arkansas. Increment 1 is a ballistic missile, unlike the ramjet-powered Increment 4 now in development, and it fires from the same launchers as ATACMS: the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) and the M270A2 Multiple Launch Rocket System.

Its slimmer body lets each launch pod hold two PrSM rounds, according to Lockheed Martin, while an ATACMS pod holds one, so a HIMARS can carry twice as many deep-strike missiles before reloading. The Army took delivery of its first Increment 1 missiles on December 8, 2023, Defense News reported, after production qualification tests at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico in November 2023. The Army granted the program Milestone C approval, the gate to full production, in July 2025.

The 499-kilometre figure is a treaty legacy rather than a physical limit. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, signed by the U.S. and the Soviet Union on December 8, 1987, banned ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometres, according to the Arms Control Association. The PrSM was designed while the treaty was in force, so its requirement stopped just below that line.

The U.S. withdrew from the treaty on August 2, 2019, and the cap fell away. A long-range test from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California in October 2021 is believed to have flown beyond 499 kilometres, Defense News reported, and Lockheed Martin now lists the range as “499+”. Australian defence officials describe the missile’s maximum range as beyond 500 kilometres. The Army has not published an exact maximum, so any figure above 500 kilometres for Increment 1 remains an outside estimate.

The PrSM outranges ATACMS by about 200 kilometres and doubles the number of rounds each launcher carries. The ATACMS reaches a maximum of 300 kilometres, according to Lockheed Martin, which builds both missiles; the PrSM Increment 1 reaches more than 499 kilometres. The ATACMS packs one missile into a launch pod; the PrSM packs two. The ATACMS attacks land targets only; the PrSM family is being extended to hit moving ships from Increment 2 onward.

The Army has said it is phasing ATACMS out and shifting production to the PrSM, according to the same Reuters report. PrSM stocks were low to begin with because the missile is new, the report’s sources said, and the war with Iran used up most of both. The exact number left is classified.

The PrSM is being developed in stages, each adding range, sensors or warheads to the same launcher-compatible missile. Increment 1 is the baseline land-attack missile now in service.

Increment 2 adds a multimode seeker so the missile can find and track moving targets, including ships, at ranges of up to about 500 kilometres. The seeker has been demonstrated in a 350-kilometre flight test, and in mid-September the Army awarded Lockheed Martin a $1.21 billion contract for Increment 2 early operational capability missiles, The Defense Post reported, with about 120 missiles expected in 2026-27 and initial operational capability in 2028.

Increment 3 focuses on new warhead and payload options and has the least public detail. Increment 4 is the long-range step. The five companies selected on September 29 are Anduril, Castelion, Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, Mach Industries and RTX. Each will build prototypes that launch from HIMARS, with a competitive fly-off and first down-select in fiscal year 2027 and a final fly-off in fiscal year 2028. Lockheed Martin’s entry pairs a rocket booster with a ramjet supplied by L3Harris, reuses the Increment 2 seeker and keeps the Increment 1 launch container and fire-control interface, so existing HIMARS and M270A2 launchers could fire it without changes to training or logistics.

The PrSM is fast but its top speed is not published. In Australia’s first firing, on July 25, 2025, a missile flew 304 kilometres in four minutes and three seconds, an average of about Mach 3.3, and landed within a metre of its aim point, Defence Connect reported. That average is below Mach 5, the usual threshold for a hypersonic weapon, though a ballistic missile flies much faster than its average at some points of its arc and the peak figure has not been released.

Combat use followed in 2026. U.S. Central Command reported the missile’s first combat launches, from M142 HIMARS, in early March during the war with Iran, Military Times reported on March 4. Details of the targets were not released. Iran’s own missile arsenal, and how much of it survives, is set out in our estimate of how many missiles Iran has left.

The U.S. Army is the main buyer, and Australia is a co-development partner and the first foreign country to fire it. The Australian Army fired its first PrSM from a HIMARS at Mount Bundey Training Area in the Northern Territory during Exercise Talisman Sabre 2025. Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy said: “This takes the range of the Australian Army from 40 kilometres to 500 kilometres.” Canberra is buying it to give its army long-range land and maritime strike in the Indo-Pacific, the same theatre where the U.S. is placing other ground-based missiles, such as NMESIS on Japan’s Yonaguni island.

Production is rising sharply. Lockheed Martin said in October 2025 it was working toward 400 missiles a year. On March 25, 2026, it announced a framework agreement with the Department of War that, together with a $4.94 billion 2025 Army contract, will quadruple PrSM production capacity, with a multiyear contract of up to seven years possible if Congress approves, a model Lockheed has also used for its F-35 framework. In June 2026, an $8.4 billion modification raised the Increment 1 production contract to about $13.33 billion, with orders running through September 30, 2032.