Dark Eagle's $2.7B Production Award Was Never Put to Bid

Leidos won a $2.7 billion sole-source Army contract on March 31 to move the Common Hypersonic Glide Body from prototypes into production, announced publicly six weeks later.

Army Contracting Command at Redstone Arsenal issued the award under FAR Part 15, the transition point where acquisition policy expects competition to begin. The Army skipped it. The required Justification and Approval document is not publicly disclosed.

FAR 6.302-1, the "only one responsible source" exception, is the most probable basis. Leidos has been prime on the Common Hypersonic Glide Body since 2019 and on the Thermal Protection Shield since 2021. No other contractor has replicated either test record.

The contract covers two linked systems. The Common Hypersonic Glide Body is the maneuvering reentry payload both Army and Navy hypersonic programs share. The Thermal Protection Shield absorbs temperatures above 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, keeping electronics and warhead intact at Mach 5-plus.

Prior awards on both programs total roughly $1.6 billion, bringing the cumulative Leidos hypersonic commitment past $4 billion.

Production math

The 5th Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery Regiment received the first Dark Eagle ground equipment in 2021 and formed the program's initial fielded unit. Bravo Battery, 1st Battalion, 17th Field Artillery Regiment, activated at Joint Base Lewis-McChord on December 12, 2025, was the second.

The Army's FY2026 budget request covers three missiles and ground support equipment at $353.4 million, alongside $513 million in research and development. The program's production target is 24 missiles per year. The gap is a manufacturing constraint, not a funding choice.

Lockheed Martin builds the booster stages. In March 2026, Lt. Gen. Frank Lozano, the Army's program executive officer for fires, told Congress the manufacturing process was "not very automated." Most subcomponent assembly, he said, was still occurring by hand.

Reaching 24 missiles per year requires different tooling than Leidos and Lockheed Martin currently run. That is what the $2.7 billion ceiling is for.

The Navy share

Army contracting officer Paul Daugherty described the award as "a joint effort between the Army and Navy," with both services' requirements combined under a single Army-managed vehicle. The Navy's Conventional Prompt Strike program draws on the same Common Hypersonic Glide Body production line.

Folding both services' requirements into one Army contract vehicle removes the per-service ledger comparison Congress applies to joint programs.

A January 2023 Congressional Budget Office study put the per-missile cost at roughly $41 million for a 300-unit production run. Army officials have since told the Congressional Research Service that flyaway costs for the FY2025 missile lot already exceed that figure; prices should fall only as quantities rise. At 24 missiles per year and current low-rate pricing, the annual production cost runs well above $1 billion, a number that appears in neither service's budget submission.

Pulling Navy production requirements into an Army contract ceiling closes off the per-service comparison that Armed Services Committee staffers normally trace through budget justifications. The combined glide-body commitment runs through a single ceiling that neither service surfaced in its five-year plan.

The FY2027 budget justifications go before Congress this summer. If the LRHW procurement line stays below $400 million, both services' hypersonic production floor is fully visible only in a sole-source contract that never went to competitive bid.