Earlier this year, the service unveiled tentative plans to decide who would participate in a new cruise missile interceptor competition in FY25. Industry feedback over the coming weeks could alter that date and reshape the acquisition timetable.
While this is the first known use of an F-35 to take down an incoming missile, the concept, at least on paper, is not new.
“There are some technical challenges to being able to share it, but ultimately, it's really an authority….We can at least pick up a phone and relay that there is a threat inbound,” Maj. Gen. Clark Quinn, the deputy commander of Ninth Air Force, Air Forces Central.
Marines have spent several years doing what the Army said it cannot do, integrating Iron Dome components into its larger air defense architecture. The USMC now has approval to continue developing its new cruise missile defense weapon.