“I think it’s a first of its kind award in long-range missile defense, and a substantive commitment,” Long Wall Founder Dan Piedmont said, describing the Missile Defense Agency’s $75 million contract to complete testing of the company’s Cyclops interceptor.
Missile Defense Agency award: $75 million to finish testing
The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has awarded California-based startup Long Wall $75 million intended to complete testing of the Cyclops low-cost midcourse interceptor, the company announced. The contract follows two years in which Long Wall invested its own capital developing the system; the company said it will add another $75 million at private expense during the period of performance to continue Cyclops design and development.
Long Wall referred questions about the duration of the contract to MDA; the agency did not respond to a query from Breaking Defense by press time.
Long Wall’s rebrand and Cyclops’ stated capabilities
Long Wall was formally established in February 2025 as a rebranding of the former launch firm ABL Space Systems, refocusing on missile defense. The company unveiled Cyclops in December 2025 as a liquid-fueled, exo-atmospheric midcourse interceptor the firm positions as the first designed for mass production.
According to Long Wall’s public materials, Cyclops is engineered to fit inside a standard shipping container and therefore can be launched from ground or sea-based platforms. The company emphasizes a production approach that relies heavily on commercial off-the-shelf components and technologies, including 3D printing, as part of its low-cost strategy.
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End the scrambleCyclops in the context of deployed midcourse systems
Cyclops is explicitly a midcourse interceptor, the same general layer of defense served by the currently deployed Ground-Based Interceptor built by Northrop Grumman. The announcement positions Cyclops as a lower-cost, mass-producible alternative within that midcourse domain — though the MDA is also pursuing different approaches elsewhere in the defensive architecture.
MDA’s parallel work on endo-atmospheric, low-cost interceptors: X-Bow Systems
Alongside the Cyclops award, the MDA has been exploring low-cost options for destroying enemy missiles after reentry, when targets are closer to their intended impact points. In August, the agency awarded X-Bow Systems nearly $11 million to flight test a solid-fuel low-cost interceptor as a potential alternative to the Army’s arsenal of Patriot missiles.
That separate award highlights the MDA’s dual-track approach: testing lower-cost midcourse interceptors such as Cyclops while also evaluating low-cost endo-atmospheric interceptors that would operate in the terminal phase of an incoming threat.
What this means for MDA, Long Wall, and the Army
- MDA: The agency has committed acquisition funds to finish testing Cyclops while continuing to field-test alternative low-cost interceptors for the terminal phase, signaling parallel investments across interception layers. The agency has not provided public detail yet on the contract’s duration.
- Long Wall: The company will continue private investment in Cyclops — matching the MDA award dollar-for-dollar — and is advancing a containerized, sea- and shore-launchable, largely commercial-component design intended to lower per-unit cost and enable mass production.
- The Army: The service’s current Patriot missile inventory is explicitly named as a comparison point; MDA’s contract with X-Bow Systems frames the solid-fuel test as a potential alternative to Patriot for endo-atmospheric defense, which the Army will likely monitor as flight test results emerge.
The MDA award marks an unusual arrangement at the intersection of public acquisition and private investment: Long Wall’s pledge to double the agency’s outlay with its own funds underscores the company’s bet on Cyclops while leaving key program details — notably the contract’s timeline — unconfirmed publicly. The next measurable milestones are the completion of MDA-funded testing and the results of X-Bow’s planned flight tests, outcomes that will determine whether these low-cost concepts move from demonstration toward operational consideration.
