On July 15, 2026, the U.S. Department of War (DoW) announced a framework agreement with Anduril Industries to rapidly scale the production of two systems designed to address the existing gap in affordable, mass-producible stand-off strike capability: pallet- and lug-launched Barracuda-500. The framework agreement outlines a two-phase approach intended to result in the procurement and delivery of thousands of Barracuda-500 vehicles per year for seven years, with initial deliveries beginning in 2027. The agreement builds on the recent announcement of the Ground-Launched Low-Cost Containerized Munition program, where Anduril is set to deliver 1,000 surface-launched Barracuda-500M systems per year for three years. Together, the Department of War and Anduril are establishing a new model for munitions procurement that emphasizes rapid, large-scale production of affordable munitions, forging a new path to expand America’s munitions inventories that is directly aligned with the Department’s focus on strengthening the United States’ Arsenal of Freedom. By establishing framework agreements covering the large-scale procurement of multiple variants of Barracuda-500 across the next several years, the Department has energized the non-traditional industrial base, capitalizing on Anduril’s complementary investments to dramatically increase production capacity for critical munitions.
From rapid development to large-scale delivery
Anduril has been part of the U.S. Air Force’s Family of Affordable Mass Missiles (FAMM) program since 2024. The FAMM program is focused on building large volumes of affordable, producible, and modular long-range strike weapons, augmenting existing exquisite munitions with affordable mass to enable the U.S. and its allies to overwhelm adversary defenses and sustain high-intensity conflicts. The FAMM program is further divided into several variants aligned to specific launch modalities, including FAMM-L for lug-launched munitions from fighter aircraft and FAMM-P for palletized munitions from airlift aircraft. Anduril is currently on contract to develop, test, and deliver Barracuda-500 for both FAMM-P and FAMM-L programs. We completed the first successful flight test of Pallet-Launched Barracuda-500M in September 2024 and have since conducted dozens of successful flight tests that have further validated the maturity, performance, and modularity of the Barracuda-500 system, including Networked Collaborative Autonomy flights, terminal engagements, and payload performance validation testing. We joined the FAMM-L program in February 2026 and will execute the first ground and flight tests for Lug-Launched Barracuda-500M in the next several months. Together, the pallet- and lug-launched variants of Barracuda-500 will significantly enhance U.S. and allied arsenals of stand-off strike munitions. The framework agreement establishes a clear mechanism and pathway to rapidly move those efforts from development and prototyping into large-scale production: under the agreement, the DoW intends to procure a maximum of 8,000 FAMM vehicles per year, with that total divided across FAMM-P and FAMM-L variants and their associated vendor pools.
Production-ready
The entire Barracuda family of systems was designed from their first blueprints to enable hyper-scale production. The pallet- and lug-launched variants of Barracuda-500 are no different. All Barracuda-500 variants share more than 90% of their parts in common, meaning that they can all be produced on the same production lines, by the same technicians, and in the same facilities as one another. That means that we can easily surge production for any one variant to meet emerging needs. The vast majority of those parts are commodity components, while the rest are de-risked by competing open-architecture designs among multiple vendors, insulating Barracuda-500 production from supply chain disruptions. One example of that modularity in action: to date, we have integrated four different turbojet engines into Barracuda-500, solving a critical supply chain bottleneck that could otherwise hamper our ability to produce at scale. Over the last year, Anduril has invested more than $40 million to build a dedicated 115,000+ square foot production facility in Southern California to meet near-term demand for the Barracuda family of systems. That facility opened earlier this year and we have already begun producing Barracuda variants at that facility. Later this year, production for Barracuda-500 will begin the shift to Arsenal-1 – Anduril’s nearly $1 billion, 5 million square foot hyper-scale production facility just south of Columbus, Ohio in Pickaway County – to further scale production capacity and meet additional surges in demand. By combining Barracuda-500’s highly producible design and commoditized supply chain with Anduril’s significant and ongoing investments to scale production capacity for Barracuda air vehicles, we have the facilities and infrastructure required to ramp annual production to high single-digit thousands of Barracuda-500s by the end of this year. That production capacity will continue to expand as we finish the build-out of the production line at Arsenal-1. Barracuda-500 is specifically designed to expand the United States’ stand-off strike capability. By augmenting existing critical munitions inventories with a more affordable, producible, and flexible option, Anduril is enhancing America’s arsenal of munitions, ensuring that we have the capability required to deter our adversaries. We look forward to working with the Air Force to deliver Barracuda-500 at scale.
