Military & Defense
Long Wall: $75 million MDA contract to test the low-cost Cyclops missile defence interceptor
The US Missile Defense Agency awarded $75 million to California start-up Long Wall to complete testing of the Cyclops interceptor, a cheap missile that hits enemy missiles in their midcourse phase, outside the atmosphere.
The US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has awarded $75 million to the California start-up Long Wall to complete testing of the Cyclops anti-ballistic missile. It is a low-cost missile that hits enemy missiles in the midcourse phase of their flight, outside the atmosphere. The company announced the contract on Wednesday, October 22.
“I believe it is the first award of its kind in long-range missile defence and a substantial commitment,” said Long Wall founder Dan Piemont. The company has self-funded the development of Cyclops for the past two years and will continue to do so. “During the contract Long Wall will invest an additional $75 million at its own expense in the design and development of Cyclops,” the announcement says. The contract’s duration has not been announced.
From space launches to missile defence
Long Wall was formally founded in February 2025 as a rebranding of the launch company ABL Space Systems, with missile defence as its sole focus. It unveiled Cyclops, which uses liquid fuel, in December 2025 as the first exoatmospheric anti-ballistic missile designed for mass production. Today’s anti-ballistic missiles can cost tens of millions of dollars per shot.
Cyclops fits in a shipping container and can be launched from land or from a sea platform. The company stresses that it mainly uses commercially available components and technologies, such as 3D printing, to keep costs down.
Cyclops operates in the midcourse phase of the target’s flight, like Northrop Grumman’s Ground-Based Interceptor, currently in service in Alaska and California to protect the US from intercontinental ballistic missiles. The MDA is also looking at cheap solutions for destroying missiles after they re-enter the atmosphere, near their targets. In August it awarded almost $11 million to X-Bow Systems for flight tests of a cheap solid-fuel air-defence missile, as a possible alternative to the Army’s Patriot missiles.
The search for cheaper anti-ballistic missiles is tied to the American Golden Dome missile shield and to the high cost of today’s weapons, such as the SM-3 Block IB, for which Raytheon signed a contract worth up to $6.3 billion.
