L3Harris Wins $6 Billion THAAD Deal, Expanding Missile Production in Arkansas

By Wesley Brown, Arkansas Delta Informer

Sept. 29, 2026 – L3Harris Technologies today announced it has received a $6 billion contract from Lockheed Martin to significantly expand propulsion production for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, a key U.S. Army ballistic missile defense system central to U.S. and allied air defenses in Iran and other recent conflicts.

This undefinitized contract, with terms still pending, builds on an earlier framework agreement L3Harris signed with Lockheed and the Department of War in late July to quadruple THAAD propulsion production. Currently, L3Harris produces THAAD’s Solid Rocket Boost Motors (SRBMs) and Liquid Divert and Attitude Control Systems (LDACS) for the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency.

The new contract will span seven years and will be the largest THAAD propulsion award L3Harris has received to date, company officials said. That includes a recent $4.7 billion deal with the DoW and Lockheed to dramatically increase production of the lethal Patriot missile defense systems, also known as PAC-3 MSE.

“This contract underscores L3Harris’ demonstrated ability to quickly deliver critical defense technologies at the scale and speed required by the Department of War,” said Ken Bedingfield, President of L3Harris’s Missile Solutions division.

“Our planned facility expansions, along with ongoing investments across our propulsion portfolio, will ensure we remain ready to support the nation’s most important missile defense missions and continue to enable a wartime footing.”

As previously announced, L3Harris said it will build a new facility to support increased THAAD production. The company manufactures THAAD SRBMs at its Huntsville, Ala., facility and at its sprawling manufacturing site in the Highland Industrial Park in East Camden, Ark. LDACS, manufactured at the company’s Los Angeles site, is a highly responsive thruster system that keeps THAAD’s kinetic kill vehicle on target during the later stages of an intercept.

In Feb. 2025, L3Harris broke ground on four new solid rocket motor production facilities at the company’s Camden site as part of a $215.6 million cooperative agreement with the Pentagon’s Defense Production Act Title III program. Under the agreement, L3Harris will increase domestic rocket propulsion manufacturing capacity to meet growing demand for tactical and strategic missile capabilities, including PAC-3, THAAD, Precision Strike Missiles, and other munitions programs.

Construction at the Calhoun County site includes a 60,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility that will centralize production of a key program under one roof, cutting the distance motors travel during manufacturing by 80%. The expansion will also include a dedicated mixer building and complementary propellant-processing buildings to support increased motor production, company officials said.

In June, L3Harris broke ground on two additional facilities to support increased production capacity for the U.S. Army’s PAC-3 propulsion systems at the Arkansas Advanced Propulsion Facilities (AAPF) campus in East Camden. 

The two new PAC-3 propulsion facilities include a 75,000-plus-square-foot cast, cure, and final assembly facility and a 70,000-square-foot case preparation facility. The facilities will incorporate several advanced manufacturing capabilities, including automated X-ray inspection systems that leverage AI for rapid defect detection, fully automated casting, and expanded curing capacity to accelerate production throughput. 

Companywide, L3Harris has said it plans capital investments totaling billions of dollars to build more than 60 facilities and add or upgrade nearly 1 million square feet of manufacturing and office space across the company’s solid rocket motor production sites in Arkansas, Alabama, and Virginia.

U.S. Missile Stockpile Concerns Add Urgency to Lockheed, L3Harris Production Push

According to recent congressional and media reports, ramping up production of interceptors faces more considerable challenges than simply announcing new production targets. “Convincing industry to build this capacity will require either additional funding directly from the government or a more stable demand signal than the current budget uncertainty and repeated supplemental funding can provide,” said Wes Rumbaugh, a military analyst with Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic & International Studies.

As one of the nation’s most advanced missile defense systems, THAAD can intercept threats both inside and outside Earth’s atmosphere. Since production began, THAAD has achieved a 100% intercept success rate in flight tests, providing crucial defense against short-, medium-, and intermediate-range ballistic missile threats, including recent drawdowns from the war in Iran.

Under the recent seven-year framework agreements with Lockheed Martin and L3Harris, the DOD anticipates increasing the production capacity of PAC-3 MSE interceptors by 233%, from roughly 600 to 2,000 interceptors per year by 2030; THAAD interceptor output capacity by 317%, from 96 to 400 units annually; and annual Precision Strike Missile production capacity fourfold to roughly 550 missiles.

Although the Pentagon and White House have downplayed concerns that the Iran and Ukraine conflicts are straining the nation’s supply of interceptor missiles, military experts and recent media and congressional reports have repeatedly questioned the nation’s future readiness amid recent drawdowns of PAC-3, THAAD, Precision Strike Missiles, Tomahawks, and other Army and Navy munitions.

According to the Lead Inspector General report on Operation Epic Fury released earlier this month, between Feb. 28 and the U.S-Iran ceasefire on April 7, U.S. forces launched air and ground-based strikes against a wide set of military targets in Iran. Admiral Brad Cooper, the U.S. CENTCOM Commander, testified to Congress in May that U.S. forces struck approximately 13,500 targets, conducted approximately 36,000 combat sorties and more than 1,800 fire missions.

The Office of the Under Secretary for Acquisition and Sustainment said that munitions expenditures in Operation Epic Fury have led to strategic inventory shortfalls and exposed industrial-base bottlenecks in munitions resupply.

“To mitigate these constraints, …. the DoW is working to streamline procurement processes and production lead times, and to stockpile critical materials, components, and selected munitions to respond rapidly to a contingency,” the report states.

L3Harris Backlog and Delay IPO

Even with the huge contract wins, L3Harris currently holds a record backlog of about $42 billion but faces execution, market, government spending, and executive suite risks that could impact delivery and revenue realization, according to Wall Street analysts.

Last month, the L3Harris board of directors fired longtime company Chairman and CEO Chris Kubasik after becoming “aware of certain conduct … that was not consistent with the values of the company as outlined in its Code of Conduct.

“This conduct was unrelated to the company’s financial reporting, controls, customer relationships or operational performance. Following its investigation of these matters with the assistance of independent counsel, the Board determined that it would be in the best interests of the Company to enter into a separation agreement with Kubasik,” L3Harris said in an Aug. 17 statement.

In announcing Kubasik’s dismissal, L3Harris appointed Sam Mehta as the company’s new president and CEO and as a member of the board. In Kubasik’s final month on the job, L3Harris also postponed the planned DoW-led initial public offering of its Missile Solution business until mid-2027. That business, now led by Bedingfield, includes the company’s 1200-employee workforce in East Camden.

Since acquiring U.S. rocket motor maker Aerojet Rocketdyne in July 2023 for $4.7 billion, L3Harris said it has made significant investments to transform and expand its production operations. The DoW investment, along with proceeds from a future initial public offering (IPO) and other sources of capital, will be used to further a variety of expansion and modernization efforts at solid rocket motor production facilities in Camden, Huntsville, and Orange, Va.

However, during the company’s second quarter earnings call in late July, Kubasik told Wall Street analysts that market conditions do not reflect the value of the Missile Solutions business the company has built. He cited more than $20 billion in new contracts, a backlog of more than $42 billion, and sustained revenue and profit growth.

In trading today, L3Harris shares are down $1.15 to $236.55 in New York. Over the past year, the Melbourne, Fla.-based defense giant’s stock is down 18% and well off its 52-week high of $379.23, reached on March 2.