L3Harris Long-Range Drone Interceptor Advances to Flight Testing Under $60M US Army Contract

L3Harris Technologies has received a three-year contract valued at up to $60 million to develop a long-range, maneuverable interceptor for the U.S. Army’s Xtended Range Counter-sUAS Missile (XRC) program, the company announced on October 23, 2026. The award comes from the Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Aviation & Missile Center (DEVCOM AvMC) and advances L3Harris into the program’s second phase, where a fully integrated interceptor will move to flight performance testing against small- to medium-size unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and traditional Short Range Air Defense (SHORAD) threats.

The Army wants its kinetic drone defenses to reach farther. XRC is a science and technology (S&T) effort, not a program of record, built around the Maneuver Short Range Air Defense (M-SHORAD) mission. DEVCOM AvMC’s market research sought a missile compatible with the Stinger Vehicle Universal Launcher (SVUL) that would outrange the FIM-92 Stinger, shorten reaction and reload times, and defeat Group 2 and Group 3 UAS flying higher and at greater standoff distances. Under Department of Defense (DoD) classification, Group 3 aircraft weigh up to 1,320 pounds and fly below 18,000 feet at under 250 knots, a band that includes many one-way attack drones.

Inside the L3Harris Drone Interceptor: Ramjet Propulsion and Seeker Design

L3Harris has disclosed few hard specifications. Scott Alexander, President of Propulsion Systems at L3Harris Missile Solutions, said the design combines “innovative propulsion with advanced seeker technologies.” The company calls its propulsion a novel approach to air-breathing ramjet engines, intended to improve fuel efficiency and extend engagement range. It has not released range, speed, diameter, mass, warhead type, or seeker modality, nor confirmed that the round fits the SVUL envelope the Army set as a baseline; it says only that the interceptor is modular and deployable from existing launch platforms.

The propulsion choice is the core of the bid. A solid rocket motor carries both fuel and oxidizer, burns out within seconds, and leaves the missile coasting and shedding energy. A ramjet draws oxygen from the atmosphere once a booster brings it to operating speed, which frees internal volume for fuel and sustains thrust deeper into the flight. Against a maneuvering Group 3 target at altitude, endgame energy separates a hit from a kinematic miss.

Publicly available specifications indicate the Stinger flies at about Mach 2 on a dual-thrust solid rocket motor, with a maximum effective range near 8 kilometers and an engagement ceiling around 3,800 meters. Those figures were set for helicopters and low-flying jets, not drones orbiting above the envelope to cue artillery.

Where XRC Fits Alongside NGSRI in Army M-SHORAD Modernization

The SVUL arms the SGT STOUT, the Stryker-based M-SHORAD Increment 1 vehicle. The Congressional Research Service lists its armament as eight FIM-92 Stinger missiles in a dual launcher, an XM914 30mm automatic cannon and an M240 7.62mm machine gun. The Army originally planned to field 144 Increment 1 systems across four battalions, and an SVUL-compatible round would need no new launchers.

XRC is not the Stinger’s designated successor; that is the Next Generation Short Range Interceptor (NGSRI), the M-SHORAD Increment 3 effort for which Lockheed Martin and RTX’s Raytheon won competing development contracts in 2023. Lockheed Martin announced its first NGSRI flight test, conducted at White Sands Missile Range, on January 13, 2026, and Raytheon demonstrated its design at Dugway Proving Ground on July 15, 2026. A June 2026 Army request for information plans for 11,000 NGSRI missiles starting in Fiscal Year 2028, and the FY2027 budget request carries $215.1 million for the program. How XRC technologies would transition into NGSRI or another program has not been made public.

On August 4, 2026, the Army issued a sources-sought notice for a Coyote-launched Next Generation Counter-sUAS Missile (NGCM) with a threshold of 16-plus kilometers at 6 kilometers altitude, an objective of 25-plus kilometers at 8 kilometers, and a unit cost under $150,000 across at least 5,000 rounds. XRC targets remain unpublished, but NGCM is the clearest public benchmark for what the Army now means by extended range.

Ramjet Competition and the L3Harris Propulsion Industrial Base

L3Harris is not alone on XRC ramjets. In late September 2026, Northrop Grumman announced an $18.8 million DEVCOM AvMC contract to integrate solid-fuel ramjet propulsion into XRC prototypes at its Allegany Ballistics Laboratory in West Virginia, with work running through December 2029, according to a company spokesperson. That award covers propulsion; the L3Harris contract covers a fully integrated interceptor. The Army has not said how many performers are in phase two or whether the efforts converge.

L3Harris brings the propulsion base it acquired with Aerojet Rocketdyne for $4.7 billion in July 2023. Its Camden, Arkansas, site produces more than 115,000 solid rocket motors a year, and on November 18, 2025, the company broke ground there on a campus of more than $400 million meant to raise large motor capacity six-fold. Ramjet interceptors still need solid rocket boosters to reach operating speed, so that motor capacity bears directly on whether XRC could scale beyond prototype lots.

Analysis: The XRC award shows the Army shifting from point defense against quadcopters to killing larger drones at range, before they reach observation or launch positions. Ramjet propulsion answers the kinematic shortfall of the Stinger generation, but air-breathing engines have largely been confined to high-end weapons such as the MBDA Meteor air-to-air missile, where unit cost is measured in millions. L3Harris must show ramjet reach at a price close to the NGCM ceiling of $150,000 per round, against targets that often cost a fraction of that. If it cannot, XRC is likely to remain a technology feeder for NGSRI or NGCM rather than a fielded round.

The contract runs to late 2029, and L3Harris cautions that funding up to the full $60 million is not guaranteed. Open questions include the flight test schedule, the interceptor’s dimensions and seeker type, SVUL compatibility, and the path to a program of record. The next markers are phase two flight results, FY2027 appropriations for M-SHORAD and counter-UAS lines, and the planned start of NGSRI production in FY2028.