U.S. Invests $508M in Long-Range Ballistic Missile Targets to Test Homeland Defenses Through 2035.

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency awarded Northrop Grumman a $508.49 million follow-on contract to support IRBM and ICBM target vehicles for Missile Defense System testing through August 2035. The award preserves the threat-representative test infrastructure needed to evaluate U.S. homeland missile defenses against long-range ballistic missile threats.

Northrop Grumman will provide flight-test support for remaining Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missile and Intercontinental Ballistic Missile targets, along with integrated logistics support for government-furnished equipment at sites in Arizona, Utah, and Maryland. The program will sustain target capabilities used to assess sensors, command-and-control networks, and interceptors, including systems associated with the Ground-based Midcourse Defense architecture and Next Generation Interceptor testing.

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A Northrop Grumman Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missile target is extracted from a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport aircraft before air launch during missile defense testing (Picture source: Northrop Grumman)

Under the contract, Northrop Grumman will provide flight-test support for the remaining Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) and Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) targets, as well as integrated logistics support for government-furnished equipment used during Missile Defense System testing. Work will be performed in Chandler, Arizona; Corinne, Utah; and Elkton, Maryland, with the performance period running from September 2026 through August 2035.

According to the official contract notice published by the U.S. Department of War on September 4, 2026, the contract is valued at exactly $508,490,719 and was awarded without competition, with one offer solicited and one received. The Missile Defense Agency (MDA), based in Huntsville, Alabama, is the contracting authority under contract number HQ0855-26-C-E001. At the time of the award, $8,786,477 in fiscal year 2026 research, development, test and evaluation funding was obligated.

Target missiles form the opposing element in realistic interception testing. Although they are not operational weapons, IRBM and ICBM targets are configured to reproduce the trajectories, speeds, payload characteristics and other parameters of potentially hostile ballistic missiles. They allow the MDA to assess whether sensors, command-and-control networks and interceptors can detect, track, discriminate and engage representative threats under controlled conditions that reflect operational constraints. Northrop Grumman describes its IRBM target as a flexible air-launched vehicle derived from technologies associated with the Pegasus space launch vehicle. The missile can be extracted from a C-17 transport aircraft by parachute before motor ignition, allowing the MDA to generate different trajectories without relying on a fixed launch site. The company’s ICBM target is based on the same family of systems while providing the range and payload capacity required to replicate long-range ballistic missile attacks.

The new contract also continues work aimed at making these targets more representative of evolving ballistic missile threats. This work is intended to reproduce more complex threat characteristics during testing of the Next Generation Interceptor, the future interceptor being developed for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense architecture. Army Recognition reported in August 2025 on Northrop Grumman’s modernization of its ICBM target vehicle, including the replacement of the first-stage Trident C4 solid-propellant motor with an SR119 motor derived from the Peacekeeper program. The change is intended to increase the vehicle’s range, payload capacity and payload configuration options in order to more closely reproduce the characteristics of intercontinental ballistic missile threats.

The MDA selected Northrop Grumman for the MBRV-11 program in 2023, and the company states that the vehicle was cleared for production in January 2025 following an accelerated development phase. Northrop Grumman describes itself as the end-to-end target provider for Next Generation Interceptor testing, integrating MBRV-11 reentry systems with IRBM and ICBM target vehicles intended to reproduce the threats the interceptor is designed to counter.

The September 2026 award therefore extends beyond the acquisition of individual target missiles. By covering flight-test support and logistics through 2035, it maintains the infrastructure required to conduct repeated missile defense tests for nearly another decade. These tests depend not only on the interceptor but also on target propulsion, avionics, reentry systems, telemetry and range support. The contract also comes as the United States increases its focus on homeland defense under the Golden Dome for America program. The award notice does not identify this contract as directly associated with Golden Dome, and it should therefore not be treated as a Golden Dome procurement. Its relevance lies at the test-infrastructure level, as any U.S. architecture intended to counter advanced ballistic missile threats depends on targets capable of reproducing, with sufficient realism, the missiles that future sensors and interceptors will be required to detect and destroy.

For the MDA, maintaining an inventory of IRBM and ICBM targets is therefore part of the technical foundation of U.S. homeland missile defense. Interceptors cannot be validated against advanced ballistic threats without target vehicles capable of reproducing those threats with sufficient realism. Under the $508.49 million contract, Northrop Grumman will be responsible for maintaining this capability through August 2035.

Written By Erwan Halna du Fretay - Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group
Erwan Halna du Fretay holds a Master’s degree in International Relations and has experience studying conflicts and global arms transfers. His research interests lie in Security and strategic studies, particularly the dynamics of the defense industry, the evolution of military technologies, and the strategic transformation of armed forces.