CoAspire says the RAACM-ER has a range greater than 1,000 nautical miles — a figure the company highlighted when it unveiled the extended-range variant at Sea-Air-Space 2026 near Washington, D.C.
CoAspire at Sea-Air-Space 2026
The RAACM-ER (pronounced “rack-em;” ER for Extended Range) was introduced by CoAspire at the Sea-Air-Space exposition just days after the U.S. Air Force opened market research for its Family of Affordable Mass Missiles — Beyond Adversary’s Reach (FAMM-BAR) program. Doug Denneny, founder, CEO, and owner of CoAspire, discussed the weapon with TWZ reporter Jamie Hunter and described the RAACM-ER as a new design rather than a modification of the original RAACM.
Design, launch modes, and sensors
CoAspire says the RAACM-ER is a somewhat larger, re‑shaped missile optimized for fuel volume and survivability through additive manufacturing. Unlike the original RAACM — designed at roughly the size of a GBU-38 (92.6 inches long with a 14‑inch wingspan) — the RAACM-ER is a new form intended to carry more fuel and additional sensors. The weapon is subsonic, fitted with GPS navigation suitable for air, ground, and surface launches, and carries a long-wave infrared sensor in the nose for search-and-find capability.
For surface-launched applications, the RAACM-ER adds a rocket booster positioned behind its turbojet so it can be propelled out of a launch canister. CoAspire says the missile has a degree of low observability, though not to the same level as the BGM-109 Block V Maritime Strike Tomahawk (MST).
Low cost, additive manufacturing, and production status
The RAACM family was developed with an emphasis on affordability and manufacturing scale. CoAspire leverages additive (3D) manufacturing on the original RAACM to reduce cost and enable rapid production ramp-up; the extended-range variant applies those same techniques to optimize fuel tank volume. Denneny emphasized three priorities: affordable mass to allow purchase at scale, use of commercial off-the-shelf parts to avoid single-supplier dependencies, and survivability against countermeasures.
The original RAACM has completed flight trials aboard a contractor-operated A-4 and is in production at CoAspire’s plant in Manassas, Virginia. CoAspire is under contract to the U.S. government for the RAACM, and Denneny confirmed plans to test-fly the RAACM-ER “very soon.”
How the RAACM-ER compares with other weapons and programs
CoAspire positions the RAACM-ER as delivering Tomahawk-like range at a far lower unit cost, noting the BGM-109 Block V MST is subsonic but costs $3.64 million per round according to the Navy. The RAACM-ER’s appearance and capability envelope invite visual comparison to the AGM-158 JASSM, though Denneny cautioned against direct equivalence and stressed internal differences.
The field of low-cost, long-range strike weapons is crowded: other companies mentioned as contenders include Anduril, General Atomics, Zone 5 Technologies, and Global Technical Systems (the latter pitching a 1,200‑nautical‑mile design). Zone 5’s Rusty Dagger has already undergone release tests from an F-16 as part of FAMM-L efforts, and both CoAspire and Zone 5 were reported to have been awarded contracts in support of the U.S. Air Force’s Extended-Range Attack Munition (ERAM) program.
How the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy, and allied procurement are positioned
- The U.S. Air Force procurement planners: The FAMM-BAR market research lists five desired attributes — a range of at least 1,000 nautical miles, speed of at least 0.7 Mach, the option of palletized delivery from a cargo aircraft, midcourse navigation updates, and manufacturing capacity to produce more than 1,000 rounds annually. The Air Force signaled a potential procurement objective of 1,000 to 2,000 units per year over five years for government and Foreign Military Sales.
- The U.S. Navy and naval planners: The RAACM-ER’s surface-launch option and long-range anti-surface use align with growing naval focus on anti-ship fires; however, CoAspire acknowledges the weapon’s stealth is less than the MST’s, a factor naval planners will weigh against cost and production scale.
- Allied procurement and Ukraine-related programs: CoAspire has been reported as one of two companies producing Extended Range Attack Missiles (ERAM) for Ukraine, a program that may involve the RAACM or a related weapon — placing CoAspire within an export and operational context beyond U.S. service buys.
The RAACM-ER combines a claimed range greater than 1,000 nautical miles, low-cost production techniques, multiple launch options, and infrared and GPS navigation to target slow-moving maritime targets and static land sites. With production already underway for the original RAACM and flight trials completed, the imminent test flights for the RAACM-ER and the procurement ambitions laid out in FAMM-BAR will be the next concrete milestones that determine whether the extended‑range design moves from concept to large-scale inventory.
https://www.twz.com/air/new-raacm-er-low-cost-cruise-missile-features-tomahawk-like-range
