US Army doubles HIMARS order to $1.9 billion

Lockheed Martin has been awarded a US$1.9 billion contract from the US Army for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) weapons doubling the original award for $861 million placed early last month.

The original deal covered work to be completed by May 2026. The new contract will push that work out to May 2028 and could be for as many as 200 systems, with the original order believed to be for about 100 systems.

HIMARS weapons have been in high demand with systems provided to Ukraine, Poland placing an order, Australia and Morocco being approved for Foreign Military Sales, Taiwan ordering more and the Netherlands requesting systems.

In April 2024, the US Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA) was approved with an estimated value of $1 billion and included range of vehicles and weapons including HIMARS. The PDA was on top of the same month’s $60 billion supplemental package for Ukraine. All packages this year have included systems, rockets or both.

HIMARS was designed to launch the entire MLRS family of munitions including Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) with a range of 70km, ER-GMLRS (150km), MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (300km) and Precision Strike Missiles (499km).