The Air Force conducted a critical design review for the AGM-181 Long Range Stand-Off nuclear-tipped cruise missile from Feb. 2 to -March 2 at Eglin AFB, Fla., a service spokesperson said Monday.
Raytheon Technologies, Arlington, Va., is the Air Force’s prime contractor for the missile, which will carry a W80-4 warhead provided by the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and initially fly aboard B-52H aircraft in 2030 or so.
In its latest budget request, released Monday, the Air Force requested more than $911 million for the Long Range Standoff (LRSO) weapon missile for fiscal 2024. The service’s estimated acquisition cost for LRSO is $16.2 billion.
The projected acquisition cost for LRSO appeared to remain on track and the Air Force appeared to be pacing to hit its LRSO Milestone C, the go- or no-go decision for mass production, in 2027.
The Air Force projected that the LRSO program manager’s Acquisition Program Baseline for LRSO Milestone C would happen between April and October 2027 and the service said Monday the production decision is scheduled for the third quarter of fiscal 2027: in June of that year. The critical design review happened roughly on time; the Acquisition Program Baseline had it on the slate for between February and August of 2023.
The NNSA planned to build its W80-4 first production unit by Sept. 30, 2027. That’s two years later than the agency had planned as recently as 2021. NNSA has said the weapon will be ready in time to meet the Air Force’s scheduled initial and final operational capability dates for LRSO. The NNSA planned to produce W80-4 warheads until some time in fiscal year 2031, which ends Oct. 1, 2031.
As of June 2021, the Air Force planned to buy 1,087 Long Range Stand-Off (LRSO) missiles — 67 for development and 1,020 in procurement — at a unit cost of $13.3 million, the Government Accountability Office in June wrote in its Weapon Systems Annual Assessment.
A version of this story first appeared in Exchange Monitor affiliate publication Defense Daily.
