US Army selects five companies for PrSM development

Two women walk past a Lockheed Martin graphic of the company's Precision Strike Missile, or PrSM, at the 2024 Modern Day Marine conference in Washington, D.C. (Colin Demarest/C4ISRNET)The U.S. Army on Tuesday signed agreements with Anduril, Castelion, Lockheed Martin, Mach Industries and RTX to create advanced long-range missile prototypes, Redstone Arsenal announced this week. Each company will develop capabilities for the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) Increment 4 program, making missiles that can be launched from the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, and that can hit maritime and land targets in motion more than 621 miles away.According to the release, development in Fiscal Year 2027 will conclude in “a competitive fly-off and down-select.” In Fiscal Year 2028, companies will participate in a final fly-off and those that have shown effective designs may be awarded additional agreements. The Tuesday Other Transaction Authority agreements come roughly a week after the Army awarded a $1.2 billion contract for Lockheed Martin to produce its short-range ballistic missiles. According to the company’s release, the contract is for initial production and future orders of the Increment 2 PrSM. The U.S. military launched a Lockheed Martin PrSM for the first time in combat against Iranian targets, according to the U.S. Central Command.Though the command has denied it, experts think that a PrSM missile — which reportedly disperses small projectiles — killed dozens of civilians in Lamerd, an Iranian city, on Feb. 28. Eve Sampson is a reporter and former Army officer. She has covered conflict across the world, writing for The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Associated Press.