ATACMS motor contract
- L3Harris was awarded a contract to manufacture solid rocket motors for ATACMS tactical missiles. - The contract value is about $65 million for production of ATACMS motors. - The award underscores ongoing industrial demand for propulsion manufacturing and sustainment in missile programmes (army-technology.com).
L3Harris said April 20 it won a contract worth more than $65 million to build rocket motors for the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS. (l3harris.com) The company said it will fabricate, test and deliver M124 rocket motors, igniters, exit cones and related parts and services under the award. Deliveries are scheduled for 2027 and 2028. (l3harris.com) ATACMS is a surface-to-surface missile fired from the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System and the M270 launcher family. Lockheed Martin says the missile can strike targets at distances up to 300 kilometers. (lockheedmartin.com) The motor is the missile’s propulsion section, the part that burns solid propellant and pushes the weapon downrange after launch. L3Harris already describes itself as the producer of the ATACMS solid-propellant rocket motor. (l3harris.com) The award lands as the Army is trying to keep long-range fires capacity available while it fields the newer Precision Strike Missile. The Army said in July 2025 that Precision Strike Missile Increment 1 had won Milestone C approval and would replace ATACMS with range greater than 400 kilometers. (army.mil) That overlap helps explain why propulsion work is still drawing money. Lockheed Martin says ATACMS remains in full-rate production for the U.S. Army and foreign military sales partners. (lockheedmartin.com) The contract also arrives days after L3Harris and Orange County, Virginia, announced a larger expansion of the company’s solid rocket motor footprint. On April 15, L3Harris said it would invest more than $1 billion in the Virginia Advanced Propulsion Facilities project, which it said would more than double manufacturing space and add more than 350 jobs over five years. (l3harris.com) L3Harris says it is building or expanding more than 30 manufacturing facilities across its major solid rocket motor sites. The company says its Camden, Arkansas, operation produces more than 115,000 solid rocket motors a year. (l3harris.com) The immediate result is narrower than the Virginia buildout but more concrete: a named missile program, a defined motor package and a delivery window running through 2028. For the Army’s ATACMS inventory, that keeps a key propulsion supplier on contract while the service shifts to its next long-range missile. (l3harris.com)
