The Air Force wants to know which companies can build more than 1,000 low-cost cruise missiles for Ukraine on a wartime clock, and the answer could open a production line to firms well outside the traditional missile primes. In a new Request for Information on the Extended Range Attack Munition (ERAM), the service asks potential contractors to describe how they would supply a small, air-launched standoff missile built for mass production, Defense News reported. Responses are due Nov. 19.

"The U.S. Air Force is asking the defense industry whether it can deliver a new cruise missile intended for Ukraine," Defense News correspondent Michael Peck wrote. The schedule in the notice is the headline for industry: first deliveries no later than three months after contract award, and more than 1,000 missiles delivered within 15 months.

What the ERAM RFI Asks a Missile to Do

The technical bar is modest by cruise-missile standards, which is the point. According to the RFI details reported by Defense News and Common Defense, ERAM should be a 500-pound-class weapon with a range greater than 250 nautical miles and a speed above Mach 0.6. Terminal accuracy should fall within 10 meters of the target even under jamming or degraded GPS. On impact, the weapon must deliver blast and fragmentation effects and achieve limited penetration.

The Air Force's own description of the program, quoted in both outlets, frames the requirement around cost and volume rather than exotic performance. The service calls ERAM a next-generation cruise missile "designed to provide affordable mass to the fight," and one that "delivers a precision-guided, stand-off capability against high-value fixed targets."

Ukrainian outlet Militarnyi reported the same figures in metric terms, describing a weapon of roughly 230 kilograms with a range of at least 460 kilometers. It added that the navigation system is designed to operate amid active electronic jamming and without GPS signals, and that the missile must have configurable fuze settings.

Can Anyone Deliver 1,000-Plus ERAMs in 15 Months?

The delivery window is the hardest part of the RFI. "The Air Force is pressing industry to rapidly produce more than 1,000 Extended Range Attack Munitions, with initial deliveries expected within three months of a contract award and the entire order completed within 15 months," Common Defense reported. Militarnyi put it plainly: "Deliveries must begin no later than three months after the contract is awarded."

A three-month gap between award and first delivery leaves no room for a fresh design cycle. A respondent would need tooling, supply chains for airframes, engines, seekers and warheads, and a test pathway either in place or nearly so. That favors companies that already have hardware flying, but the RFI language reported so far does not restrict the field to the two prototype developers.

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The quantity also sits inside a larger approved sale. In August 2025, the Trump administration announced an $825 million sale of 3,350 ERAMs to Ukraine, according to Defense News and Common Defense. The 1,000-plus missiles in the new RFI cover only part of that total, which suggests further production tranches could follow if this round produces a workable supplier base.

How Zone 5 and CoAspire Got ERAM to a Live-Warhead Test

ERAM has moved quickly from the start. In 2024, the Air Force awarded prototype contracts to two small defense companies, Zone 5 Technologies and CoAspire. Common Defense reports that those awards followed an original RFI the service published in January 2024. In January 2026, less than a year and a half after the prototype awards, the Air Force conducted a live-warhead test at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida.

Militarnyi gives a slightly different timeline, reporting that the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center first issued a request for a low-cost, scalable air-to-surface missile in June 2024 and that ERAM went from concept in July 2024 to prototype production in September 2025, a span of 14 months. GovConFeed could not reconcile the outlets' start dates, and the Ukrainian outlet's figures have not been independently confirmed. Militarnyi also reported that the Air Force tested the Rusty Dagger missile by releasing it from an F-16, in a campaign covering compatibility, loading procedures and flight compatibility with the fighter.

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Whether Ukraine already flies the weapon remains open. In June 2026, Ukrainian media suggested that Ukraine had used the AGM-188A Rusty Dagger, an ERAM version, against the Voronezh Semiconductor Plant, Defense News reported. Common Defense noted that its source does not establish that operational use on Ukraine's F-16s has been confirmed.

Why Iran-War Missile Depletion Changes the ERAM Calculus

Defense News raised a second question: how much the U.S. military will use ERAM itself. The Air Force published its original RFI in January 2024, "nearly two years into the Ukraine War — and nearly two years before the Iran war depleted U.S. inventories of expensive missiles," Peck wrote.

That context matters for anyone weighing an investment in production capacity. A cheap, 250-plus-nautical-mile standoff weapon built in the thousands fits the Pentagon's broader push, described by Defense News, for cheaper weapons developed more quickly. If U.S. forces adopt ERAM or a derivative to backfill depleted stocks, demand could extend well beyond the Ukraine sale. None of the three outlets reports any such U.S. requirement yet, so contractors should treat domestic demand as a possibility, not a plan.

What It Means for Contractors

This is market research, not a solicitation or an award. An RFI gives the Air Force a picture of who can build ERAM at the stated rate, and it typically shapes the acquisition strategy, competition structure and schedule of any follow-on production contract. Companies that skip the Nov. 19 response risk being invisible when the service writes that strategy.

  • Small and mid-tier firms may have an opening. The prototype work went to two small companies, and the program's emphasis on affordable mass appears to reward lean manufacturing over legacy missile pedigree.
  • Show capacity, not just capability. The three-month first-delivery window and 15-month total schedule mean responses should document existing tooling, supplier commitments and monthly output rates, not just a design.
  • Subcontractors should position now. Any winner will need engines, airframe structures, anti-jam navigation, warheads and fuzes at volume. Suppliers of those components can reach out to Zone 5 Technologies, CoAspire and other likely respondents before teaming arrangements lock.
  • Watch the follow-on volume. The approved Ukraine sale covers 3,350 missiles, and the RFI addresses only 1,000-plus of them. Additional tranches, or U.S. adoption, would raise the ceiling.

The original Air Force notice was not reviewed for this article; the specifications above come from the three outlets cited below.

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