The US military has awarded a massive contract to dramatically ramp up the production of Tomahawk cruise missiles, the Pentagon said on Monday, after burning through hundreds of these long-range munitions during the Iran conflict.
The $22.9 billion contract awarded to US defense contractor RTX's Raytheon follows an earlier framework agreement announced in February and will increase annual production to more than 1,000 Tomahawk missiles over a seven-year period.
Acting US Navy Secretary Hung Cao said in a statement that the "landmark" munitions contract "will accelerate Tomahawk missile delivery to our warfighters at unprecedented speed."
He said that "by working closely with industry to expand our munitions industrial base's capacity," the Department of Defense "is utilizing every available tool to meet the demands of our current operations, ensuring they are equipped to fight, win, and come home safe."
The BGM-109 Tomahawk is a subsonic cruise missile with a standard range of roughly 1,000 miles. It is in service with the US Navy, the Army, and a small number of American allies. The long-range weapon can be fired from surface warships and submarines, as well as from ground-based launchers at land targets. There is also a maritime strike variant.
RTX said in a statement in early February, when the initial framework agreement was announced, that the Tomahawk, which entered service in the 1980s, had been used in "an operational environment" more than 2,300 times.
The US announced the start of Operation Epic Fury in late February, igniting a fresh conflict with Iran that saw American forces in the Middle East fire numerous Tomahawks.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies, a US-based think tank, published a report in late May estimating that American forces had already expended more than 1,000 Tomahawks.
American forces have continued to strike Iran in the months since, though it's unclear which munitions have been used. A single Tomahawk missile can cost up to $3.5 million per unit.
CSIS said annual Tomahawk production capacity can reach up to 600 units. The new contract aims to bring that figure up to 1,000.
RTX's Raytheon said on Monday that it has "invested heavily in recent years to ramp up production" of the Tomahawk and delivered three times as many missiles in the first half of 2026 as in the same period last year.
US officials and analysts have warned that it will take years to fill the stockpiles of critical munitions depleted during the Iran war, which include the Tomahawk, other standoff weapons, and high-end air defense missiles.
Precision munitions like the Tomahawk are viewed by US military planners as essential assets that would be needed in large quantities in a potential conflict with China.
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Jake Epstein is a defense correspondent in London for Business Insider, covering the US military, NATO, and European security, as well as emerging tech in warfare.Jake has filed stories from conflict zones in Ukraine and the Middle East, where he embedded with a US aircraft carrier on a combat deployment in the Red Sea. Jake has reported extensively on NATO operations across Europe, including from aboard an AWACS surveillance plane along the Russian border, an RAF Voyager tanker refueling fighter jets over the Baltic Sea, and a Dutch helicopter flying to a warship above the Arctic Circle.
