Lockheed unveils longer-range Patriot missile, PAC-3 Edge

Lockheed Martin has unveiled PAC-3 Edge, a new Patriot interceptor designed to reach higher, fly farther and maneuver harder than the PAC-3 MSE now in service. It is the company’s entry in the U.S. Army’s Future Interceptor competition.

The company debuted the missile on Oct. 12 at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual meeting in Washington. Lockheed says the U.S. Army has moved it into the next stage of the competition and that it is working toward what the service calls a residual operational capability by 2031, meaning a small number of missiles ready for emergency use before full fielding. The company did not release range, altitude, speed or cost figures, and did not name the other competitors.

PAC-3 Edge builds on the PAC-3 MSE, the hit-to-kill missile that destroys targets by striking them directly and has been used heavily against Russian missiles in Ukraine and Iranian missiles in the Middle East. Lockheed says the new version adds a new seeker, an upgraded propulsion system and improved flight controls. The seeker was designed by the company’s Strigo Product Center, which Lockheed says it funded with $250 million of its own money.

The company says the missile is meant to counter a wide range of aircraft, missiles and hypersonic weapons at higher altitudes and longer ranges than current Patriot interceptors. In the U.S. Army’s layered missile defense, it would sit between the PAC-3 MSE and the THAAD system, which intercepts ballistic missiles at much higher altitudes.

The U.S. Army has tried before to field a next-generation Patriot interceptor. It ran a Lower-Tier Future Interceptor competition between Lockheed and Raytheon, then announced in 2024 that it would cancel the effort before reviving the idea as the Future Interceptor program. The U.S. Army has not published the program’s budget, the number of missiles it plans to buy or when it will pick a winner.

PAC-3 Edge becomes the fourth missile in Lockheed’s Patriot family, alongside the older PAC-3 CRI, the PAC-3 MSE and the lower-cost PAC-3 ACE the company announced in July for European customers.