The U.S. Air Force awarded Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace a $240.9 million firm-fixed-price contract on December 12, 2025. The deal covers Lot Two production of the Joint Strike Missile (JSM) for the F-35A Lightning II fleet, according to a contract notice from the U.S. Department of War. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, is the contracting activity, and work will run through November 30, 2028.
The sole-source award funds all-up-round missiles, containers, test hardware, and support equipment. It draws on fiscal 2024 and fiscal 2025 procurement missile appropriations, with $137,970,866 obligated from the 2024 funding line and $102,933,232 from the 2025 line. Production will take place entirely at Kongsberg’s facilities in Norway.
What The Lot Two Contract Covers
Lot Two is a production batch, not a simple missile purchase. It bundles missile manufacturing with the containers, test hardware, and support items needed to move each round from the factory floor to an operational squadron.
Fiscal 2024 funding is tied to as many as 48 JSM all-up rounds and related equipment. Fiscal 2025 funding covers up to 50 more rounds. Gross costs are listed at $161.011 million for the 2024 tranche and $165.909 million for 2025, working out to roughly $3.35 million and $3.32 million per missile.
The Air Force has said final quantities can shift under a buy-to-budget model, depending on negotiated pricing. Planning documents point to about 204 all-up rounds against a longer-term inventory goal of 240 — figures that predate the Air Force’s original 2023 target of 268 JSMs over five years, discussed below.”
Timeline For Testing and Delivery
Program documents link Lot Two production to a wider testing schedule for JSM on the F-35A. Developmental test and evaluation was projected to wrap up in September 2025, with operational test and evaluation set to begin around May 2026.
Initial deliveries tied to the fiscal 2024 production line are planned for around May 2026. Deliveries from the fiscal 2025 line are expected by March 2027. The Air Force expects production rates and lead times to stabilize as the contract matures toward its November 2028 completion date.
Photo: U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Jensen Stidham | Wikimedia Commons
A Growing Pipeline Between Kongsberg and The Air Force
Lot Two did not appear in isolation. Kongsberg received a $141 million contract for JSM Lot One in May 2024, followed by a $69.5 million order in January 2025 for additional rounds tied to that same lot. Deliveries from Lot One are expected to begin in 2026.
The pipeline kept growing after Lot Two. On June 5, 2026, the Air Force added a $280.715 million Lot Three modification, funded almost entirely from fiscal 2025 appropriations and scheduled to close out by December 2029. A further $98.412 million modification followed on July 15, 2026, expanding the F-35A’s anti-ship and land-strike reach while keeping the missile’s internal-carriage, low-observable design intact.
Read together, the awards show a steady scale-up rather than a single purchase. The Air Force said in 2023 that it intended to acquire 268 JSMs over five years. It’s not clear from public documents how this figure relates to the 204-round and 240-unit figures cited in planning documents for the current inventory goal — whether these represent a revised target, a different scope, or the same program measured at different points in time.
Growing International Demand for the Missile
The JSM program now extends well beyond the United States. Norway, Australia, Japan, Germany, and Canada have all selected or fielded the missile. Belgium became a sixth nation in the program in 2025, when it finalized its own JSM procurement — marking the country’s first investment in cruise missile capability. Germany’s F-35A order had made it the fifth nation earlier that same year.
Belgium’s decision to procure JSM, finalized in 2025, marked the country’s first investment in cruise missile capability. Australia has gone further, signing an agreement with Kongsberg’s local subsidiary to manufacture and service JSM and its naval counterpart at a new factory near Newcastle, New South Wales, with production expected to start in 2027.
That international footprint matters for the U.S. contract. A wider customer base helps Kongsberg spread its Norway production line across steady, overlapping orders rather than relying on a single buyer, which supports the delivery schedule the Air Force is counting on through 2028 and beyond.
Why It Matters
The Lot Two award keeps the F-35A on track to carry a stealth-compatible, long-range strike weapon that older external-carriage missiles cannot match without compromising the jet’s radar signature. Combined with the Lot Three awards that followed in 2026, the contract points to a U.S. Air Force that is treating JSM as a core part of its stand-off strike inventory rather than a one-time acquisition.
Because the JSM is designed for internal carriage on the F-35A, the aircraft can retain its low-observable configuration while carrying a longer-range strike weapon, rather than relying on external stores that can increase its radar signature.
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}