Key Points
- The U.S. Navy awarded General Dynamics Missions Systems a $194.1 million contract modification for fire control engineering support on the SLCM-N nuclear missile program.
- The Navy has set a 2034 target date for delivering the missile, which Congress kept funded after the Biden administration sought to cancel it in 2022.
The U.S. Navy has awarded General Dynamics Missions Systems a $194.1 million contract modification for engineering support work on the Nuclear-Armed, Sea-Launched Cruise Missile program, according to a Department of War contract announcement.
The cost-plus-fixed-fee modification adds to a previously awarded unpriced letter contract and covers technical and engineering support for the missile’s Fire Control Subsystem. The $194.1 million figure includes optional line items that may or may not ultimately be exercised. Work will be split between General Dynamics’ facility in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, which will handle 75% of the effort, and a facility in Manassas, Virginia, handling the remaining 25%. The contract is scheduled to run through September 30, 2028.
The Navy is obligating $135.3 million in fiscal 2025 reconciliation research, development, test and evaluation funds at the time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Navy awarded the contract sole source under federal acquisition law, after previously publishing notice of the pending award on the government’s SAM.gov contracting portal. Strategic Systems Programs, the Navy office in Washington, D.C., that oversees the service’s ballistic and cruise missile programs, is managing the contract.
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The missile at the center of the contract, known as SLCM-N, is a Navy program to develop a low-yield, non-strategic nuclear warhead mounted on a sea-launched cruise missile, intended for deployment on attack submarines and potentially surface ships. The concept was first formally recommended in the Trump administration’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review as a way to restore a capability the Navy retired in 2010, when it withdrew the nuclear-armed Tomahawk Land Attack Missile from service.
The Biden administration’s 2022 Nuclear Posture Review recommended canceling SLCM-N, citing cost and questions about the adequacy of the existing nuclear arsenal. Congress rejected that recommendation and continued funding the program through subsequent defense authorization bills, establishing it as a formal program of record in the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act.
Rear Adm. Randy Wolfe, director of the Navy’s Strategic Systems Programs, testified before Congress in May 2025 that the program had spent the prior year working to define the missile’s overall system architecture, an effort spanning the missile itself, its fire control system, launcher system, platform integration, warhead integration, and associated support equipment and training materials. Wolfe said at the time that the Navy expected to deliver the capability in 2034. Sandia National Laboratories announced in January that the program would use the W80-5 warhead variant.
