$240.9M and a Stealth Advantage: Kongsberg’s Joint Strike Missile Enters Full Production for the F-35 Fleet

The F-35’s stealth signature is only as valuable as the weapons it can carry internally. A $240.9 million contract awarded June 8, 2026 to Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace for Lot Two production of the Joint Strike Missile (JSM, designated AGM-184) directly addresses what has long been the aircraft’s most significant ordnance gap: the absence of a stealth-compatible precision anti-ship weapon. The JSM is the only missile currently cleared to fly inside the F-35’s weapons bay while retaining the aircraft’s low-observable characteristics.

⚡ At a Glance

Contract: $240.9 million, Kongsberg D&A (Norway), Lot 2 production
Delivery: Through November 2028 — missiles, launch containers, test hardware, support
Platforms: F-35A (USAF), F-35C (Navy), F-35B (USMC) — all three variants
Roles: Anti-ship (maritime strike) + land attack — true dual-role
Key advantage: Internal carriage — stealth profile fully preserved
Range: 200+ km (profile-dependent); sea-skimming and terrain-following modes

Filling a Gap That Should Not Have Existed

When the F-35 program was conceived, the emphasis was on stealth, sensor fusion, and network-enabled warfare. The weapons inventory was treated as a solvable problem to be addressed in subsequent spiral development. Years later, that assumption proved optimistic: the existing long-range precision munitions — JASSM, LRASM — are either too large to fit the internal bay or were not designed for the F-35’s specific carriage constraints. Carrying them on external pylons works, but it defeats the stealth proposition entirely. Against modern integrated air defense systems, an F-35 with external stores is no stealthier than a legacy platform.

Kongsberg’s engineers approached JSM as a clean-sheet redesign problem. Drawing on the aerodynamic pedigree of the Norwegian Penguin anti-ship missile, they re-engineered the weapon’s form factor to fit the F-35A’s internal bay — a space roughly 4.8 meters long and 0.5 meters wide. The resulting missile retains sea-skimming and nap-of-earth flight profiles, an autonomous imaging infrared seeker for terminal guidance, GPS-aided inertial navigation for mid-course correction, and a dual-role warhead rated for both hardened land targets and lightly armored vessels. Range exceeds 200 km depending on flight profile, with the sea-skimming trajectory substantially extending maritime standoff distance.

F-35A Lightning II U.S. Air Force — The F-35A is the primary Lot 2 JSM integration platform, though the contract covers all three U.S. variants — a notable expansion from the earlier Air Force-only baseline. (Photo: U.S. Air Force)

Three Variants, One Munition, a Growing Export List

The decision to extend JSM integration to all three U.S. F-35 variants — A, B, and C — shifts the weapon from a specialized Air Force capability to a fleet-wide standard. For carrier operations, the F-35C now carries internal anti-ship capability that previous carrier-based aircraft like the F/A-18E/F required external ordnance to match. The F-35B’s STOVL capability, operating from smaller amphibious ships or austere forward strips, gains a stand-off maritime strike option that dramatically expands its tactical envelope.

International demand is already visible. Norway has finalized procurement commitments, treating JSM as the natural successor to its legacy Penguin inventory. Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force is in advanced evaluation, with domestic production licensing discussions reported. Australia’s JSM integration for its F-35As is progressing on a parallel track. Kongsberg’s positioning of JSM within the same product family as the Naval Strike Missile (NSM, deployed by surface ships and land-based launchers) creates a coherent multi-domain strike ecosystem — the same seeker technology, the same engagement logic, adapted to different platforms and launch environments.

F-35 Lightning in flight — The F-35’s combination of stealth airframe and JSM internal carriage creates a strike package that can penetrate modern area-denial environments without detection. (Photo: Lockheed Martin)

The contract’s strategic context points toward the Indo-Pacific. JSM’s anti-ship role is explicitly designed for the kind of maritime area-denial environment that China’s DF-21D and DF-26 ballistic missiles impose on surface fleets; in this threat environment, F-35Cs operating from carriers need precisely the kind of low-observable, long-range maritime strike capability that JSM provides. The November 2028 delivery deadline creates a capability baseline well ahead of the decade’s end — a window the Pentagon has explicitly identified as critical for Taiwan Strait deterrence posture.