Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) Missile

Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) Missile is an Air Force tactical missile procurement line within appropriation 3020F, Missile Procurement, Air Force; Budget Activity 02, Other Missiles; and Budget Subactivity 2, Tactical. The line covers Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II (APKWS II) configured with Fixed-Wing Air-Launched Counter Unmanned Aerial Systems (C-UAS) Ordnance software, known as FALCO. FALCO is employed on A-10, F-15, and F-16 aircraft and is intended primarily for air-to-air engagements against unmanned aerial systems (UAS). The program also retains a capability to engage moving and transient targets in urban, desert, mountainous, and other terrain.

FALCO converts a 2.75-inch unguided rocket into a precision, laser-guided weapon through a mid-body, semi-active laser guidance and control kit. Its guidance sections are compatible with new and existing inventories of rocket motors, warheads, and launchers, allowing those components to be used in the guided configuration. The resulting precision is intended to reduce collateral damage, while increased standoff range helps improve aircrew survivability. These attributes support engagements against targets that may move or appear only briefly.

The FALCO all-up round combines a proximity fuze, an M151 warhead, a WGU-59 guidance and control section, and an MK66 rocket motor. It is launched from an LAU-131A/A rocket launcher. The guidance section supplies the laser-guided capability; the remaining elements provide the fuze, warhead, propulsion, and launch interface for the complete round. This configuration links the program's counter-UAS purpose to specific rocket components rather than requiring an entirely new missile architecture.

Air Force Life Cycle Management Center organization AFLCMC/EBH procures these items through the U.S. Army Missile Command's Tactical Air to Ground Munitions organization within Program Executive Office Missiles and Space at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, and/or through the Navy's PMA-242 at Naval Air Station Patuxent River. FALCO guidance sections are procured through PMA-242. The budget justification also identifies the item as necessary for active and reserve Armed Forces components conducting homeland defense, domestic emergency response, and military support to civil authorities, consistent with Section 1815 of the FY 2008 National Defense Authorization Act.

The acquisition plan allows procurement quantities to change with negotiated contract options, pricing bands, and available funding under the cited buy-to-budget acquisition authority. Inventory objectives can also change during an execution year as combatant commanders' operational-plan requirements are updated. As a result, procurements may be adjusted to address critical inventory shortfalls or emerging requirements for inventoried items that are not bought every year. The justification calls for differences between planned and actual expenditures to be addressed during budget execution.

Procurement funds may also protect the ability to continue producing the weapon when diminishing manufacturing sources, material shortages, or obsolescence threaten the supply base. Authorized responses include studies, bridge buys, life-of-type buys, replacement of suppliers or parts, and qualification activities. The justification specifically includes commercially used electronic components that are in short supply. These measures are intended to preserve future production capability and capacity, rather than only support immediate deliveries.

The line also supports digital acquisition practices described as open, agile, and digital. Potential investments include analytical and information-management tools, data management, digital environments, networks, facilities, and security-infrastructure upgrades that directly support capability development and sustainment. The program plans to leverage Department of War and Department of the Air Force enterprise information-technology solutions for those efforts. These are described as eligible uses of program resources, not as a separate FY 2027 funding request.

The Air Force requests no FY 2027 funding in the 3020 APKWS0 line, so the budget does not propose a requested-year purchase or separately funded activity under this line. The resource summary records procurement of 1,000 units in FY 2026 and plans for 750 units annually from FY 2028 through FY 2031. It also notes that FY 2025 funding was carried in appropriation 3011, program element 0208030F. Thus, the line's operational and production justifications describe the program's continuing procurement framework, while the FY 2027 request for this specific line remains zero.