Yonhap News Agency
• Kim Eun-jung
Korea Aerospace Industries and Hyundai Rotem have agreed to jointly develop and integrate a long-range air-to-air missile for South Korea’s KF-21 fighter, while exploring overseas sales of combined aircraft-and-weapons packages. The pact comes as Hanwha Group increases its stake in KAI beyond 15%.
Missile Systems & Strategic Weapons
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Korea Aerospace Industries and Hyundai Rotem have agreed to jointly develop and integrate a long-range air-to-air missile for South Korea’s KF-21 fighter, while exploring overseas sales of combined aircraft-and-weapons packages. The pact comes as Hanwha Group increases its stake in KAI beyond 15%.
The Pentagon’s effort to replenish missile inventories is creating opportunities for emerging manufacturers, which argue that expanding production requires more than adding factory space. Their approach focuses on redesigning how defense plants are built and operated as the U.S. seeks greater missile manufacturing capacity.
Northrop Grumman has unveiled Raid Hunter, a networked short-range air-defense system combining a chain gun with precision-guided 50mm ammunition for bases and critical infrastructure. Separately, precision-munitions startup Heaviside Industries raised $60 million and partnered with Nammo, while L3Harris highlighted affordable, mass-scalable weapons.
DARPA is soliciting radical concepts for a next-generation hypersonic cruise missile, emphasizing affordable, scalable production and the ability to penetrate adversary air defenses. In parallel, Boeing unveiled an IFPC Increment 2 interceptor design, while Lockheed Martin introduced shared sensor technologies and a modular payload system for future missile bodies.
Satellite imagery indicates China may be increasing the number of missile cells available to store and fire weapons aboard its most advanced frigate model. The development highlights the world’s largest navy’s continuing effort to expand shipborne firepower and narrow its capability gap with the U.S.
The Pentagon is urging defense contractors to increase production of missile interceptors after recent conflicts highlighted a gap between the rate at which the U.S. can expend its most capable air- and missile-defense weapons and the pace at which industry can replenish them.
Boeing is promoting an off-the-shelf radar seeker designed to reduce the cost of guided missiles, while Northrop Grumman has introduced Raid Hunter, a 50mm gun-based air defense system for countering drones, cruise missiles and other aerial threats in layered, short-range defense.
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The Pentagon says President Donald Trump’s $185 billion Golden Dome missile-defense initiative has established its first operational site at Fort Story, Virginia, and completed two key tests. Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein warned that without continued funding—and a solution to a potential 2027 cliff—the program will stop.
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