A pair of Dark Eagle launch systems on display during exercises in Australia during summer 2025. (Perla Alfaro/U.S. Army)
Congress should consider tighter monitoring of costs for the Dark Eagle hypersonic missile program as it gets closer to fuller operational status, according to an April 7 report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.
“As the Army begins procurement of its first eight missiles, continues fielding (Dark Eagle) batteries, conducts additional operational tests and builds missile stockpiles, Congress might decide to require more frequent updates from Army program officials.”
According to a January 2023 study by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, buying 300 Intermediate-Range Hypersonic Boost-Glide Missiles “similar to (Dark Eagle)“ was estimated to cost $41 million per missile.
The Army told CRS that the “flyaway cost” for the eight missiles requested in the Army’s FY2025 budget would exceed the projected per-missile cost, but that future missile costs would decrease as order quantities increased.
“Enhanced oversight” could “better inform future congressional budgetary decisions and the program’s overall direction,” the report said.
The report is a periodic program update produced by the research arm of Congress. The reports are regularly issued on key weapons, policy and program initiatives through the federal government.
Dark Eagle is the name given by the Army to its two-stage Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW), which can fly at Mach 5 — speeds five times the speed of sound, or 3,800 mph at sea level. It has a range of 1,725 miles.
The Army and Navy are jointly developing the first stage booster, which will be used on the Army’s Dark Eagle and the Navy’s sea-fired Conventional Prompt Strike system.
Dark Eagle’s second stage is a hypersonic glide body that can be maneuvered as it approaches the target.
Other nations, including Russia and China, are pursuing the development of hypersonic missiles, which could be armed with nuclear weapons.
The United States has said the Dark Eagle would only be armed with a conventional warhead and be primarily used to hit high-value, land-based enemy targets.
Arms control advocates have said hypersonic missiles could be destabilizing because anti-missile systems are based on intercepting ballistic missiles in a parabolic flight path similar to other projectiles. A hypersonic missile can fly a variable path that makes it more difficult to track and destroy.
Dark Eagle’s missile component is being developed by Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.
The 5th Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery Regiment at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash., has been designated to operate the first Dark Eagle battery.
Testing includes monitoring how well the missile system shields “hypersonic missiles’ sensitive electronics” and performance of materials and aerodynamics on missile surfaces that are exposed at such high speeds to “sustained temperatures as high as 3,000 Fahrenheit.”
Successful flights in the Pacific and Atlantic have moved the program forward, and a CRS report published on April 7 said the Army on March 20 had expressed that it expected the first operational missiles to the Lewis-McChord battery “soon.”
