U.S. Navy F-35C Completes First LRASM Flight Tests for Long-Range Anti-Ship Strike.

The U.S. Navy and Lockheed Martin have completed the first phase of testing to integrate the AGM-158C Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) with the F-35C Lightning II, a step that would give carrier-based stealth fighters the ability to strike heavily defended warships from extended range. Lockheed Martin announced on June 10, 2026, that the milestone moves the carrier air wing closer to fielding a long-range maritime strike capability designed to challenge advanced naval threats beyond enemy air-defense coverage.

The completed flight-science campaign confirmed that the F-35C can safely carry the LRASM across operational flight conditions, laying the groundwork for future separation trials and full weapons testing. Once fielded, the combination of the F-35C’s survivability and the LRASM’s standoff reach would strengthen U.S. naval strike options and reflect the growing emphasis on long-range precision weapons in high-end maritime warfare.

Related topic: U.S. Navy Air Cushion Landing Craft Deploying LAV-25 Vehicles Signals Expeditionary Warfare Posture in South China Sea.

U.S. Navy and Lockheed Martin advance AGM-158C LRASM integration on the F-35C, expanding carrier-based long-range anti-ship strike capability against defended surface combatants (Picture source: U.S. DoW).

The first visible phase of the effort began with captive-carry flights on September 9 and 10, 2024, when an F-35C test aircraft flew with two inert AGM-158 missiles on its inboard wing stations and two inert AIM-9X air-to-air missiles on the wingtips. The test objectives were practical rather than symbolic: measure flutter, structural loads, and flying qualities with heavy external stores; confirm mechanical and electrical interfaces; and collect the data required to define safe carriage limits. A later test image identified CF-3 Flight 811 on November 6, 2025, at Patuxent River, showing that the campaign continued into a broader envelope-expansion effort. Because the AGM-158C is too large for the F-35C’s internal weapons bays, LRASM carriage requires external pylons, which changes the aircraft’s low-observable profile but provides a maritime-strike loadout that the internal bays cannot support. This trade-off is operationally relevant: an F-35C may not use this configuration for the earliest penetration of an integrated air-defense environment, but it could employ it when the priority is missile mass, range, and anti-surface effect rather than maximum signature reduction.

The F-35C brings several characteristics that matter for LRASM employment. The carrier variant has a 43-foot wingspan, 668 square feet of wing area, internal fuel capacity of nearly 20,000 pounds, a maximum speed of Mach 1.6, a combat radius greater than 600 nautical miles on internal fuel, and a total internal-and-external weapons capacity above 18,000 pounds. Those figures do not by themselves determine the final LRASM combat radius, because external stores add drag and impose flight-envelope limits, but they explain why the F-35C is a relevant candidate for carrier-based standoff anti-surface warfare. Compared with an F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, the F-35C adds a different sensor and mission-system profile. It can detect, classify, and share information while operating as part of a distributed naval kill chain. The value of new weapons on the Lightning II is not only carriage capacity but also the way the aircraft’s sensors, electronic support functions, and data links can support targeting before launch.

The AGM-158C LRASM is the anti-ship member of the AGM-158 family and is derived from the JASSM-ER airframe, but its mission system is configured for moving maritime targets rather than fixed land targets. The broader AGM-158 family uses a low-observable, subsonic cruise-missile body approximately 4.26 meters long and 0.55 meters in diameter, with an extended wingspan of about 2.7 meters and a launch weight of about 1,023 kilograms. LRASM carries a roughly 1,000-pound-class warhead suited to disabling or destroying major surface warships through blast, fragmentation, penetration, fire, and internal damage. Public range figures for LRASM remain limited and should be treated carefully. What matters more for operational planning is that the Navy defines the missile as a long-range air-launched standoff weapon for the Offensive Anti-Surface Warfare mission, with an architecture intended to reduce dependence on ISR aircraft, network links, and GPS in electronic-warfare conditions.

That guidance architecture is the core of LRASM’s tactical value. A conventional anti-ship missile that depends heavily on midcourse updates, active radar emissions, or uninterrupted satellite navigation can be degraded by jamming, emission control, decoys, and the loss of external targeting links. LRASM was built to reduce that vulnerability by navigating to a designated search area, then using onboard sensors and algorithms to locate, classify, and attack a selected ship. In practical terms, this allows a launch aircraft to fire from outside the densest shipborne air-defense envelope and then leave the missile to manage a portion of the final targeting problem. It does not remove the need for a kill chain; the Navy still requires detection, identification, rules-of-engagement clearance, mission planning, and target-quality data. But it reduces the requirement for continuous support during the missile’s terminal sequence, which is a significant advantage when the adversary is using electronic attack, decoys, and dispersed formations.

The program’s acquisition history shows why the F-35C integration matters beyond one aircraft type. The Offensive Anti-Surface Warfare Increment 1 program began from a U.S. Pacific Fleet urgent operational need generated in 2008, was established as an accelerated acquisition effort, and achieved early operational capability on the B-1B in December 2018 and the F/A-18E/F in November 2019. The 2023 Modernized Selected Acquisition Report listed a PB 2025 current estimate of 1,589 all-up rounds, including 900 for the Navy and 689 for the Air Force, with a total acquisition estimated at $7.8098 billion in then-year dollars and an average procurement unit cost of $3.603 million in then-year dollars. This gives Congress a useful measure of scale: LRASM is no longer a small urgent-need inventory; it is being expanded into a multi-aircraft, multi-service missile stockpile that supports maritime strike capacity across bombers, carrier aircraft, and future integrations.

The test program also comes as LRASM itself is being updated. All AGM-158C missiles have been upgraded to the LRASM 1.1 configuration, which was fielded in November 2023. In March 2025, the Navy conducted an operational test event with seven free-flight missiles launched from F/A-18E/F aircraft against a moving maritime target. Operational testing data remain limited for a full public assessment of effectiveness, lethality, suitability, and survivability, with a classified combined initial operational test and evaluation and live-fire report expected after FY26 testing. The next AGM-158C-3 upgrade is intended to add greater employment range, beyond-line-of-sight communications, survivability improvements, and updated target libraries, with early operational capability planned for the fourth quarter of FY26. This incremental modernization is important because missile software, target libraries, communications, and production rate are now as relevant to maritime strike capacity as aircraft integration.

For the carrier air wing, the main operational consequence is a wider anti-surface attack geometry. An LRASM-armed F-35C could use its sensors to contribute to target development, receive data from ships, aircraft, submarines, or unmanned systems, and launch from a distance that forces an opposing naval commander to defend against both the aircraft and the inbound missile salvo. This does not make the F-35C a replacement for the F/A-18E/F in the anti-ship role; rather, it adds a second carrier-based launch aircraft with different sensing, survivability, and mission-system characteristics. The limitation is equally clear: external LRASM carriage reduces the clean stealth configuration and will impose drag, bring-back, deck-handling, and release-envelope constraints that the Navy must validate before fleet clearance. Those constraints matter for sortie generation aboard an aircraft carrier, especially when a commander must balance air defense, strike, electronic attack, tanking, and maritime surveillance.

The completion of the first flight-science phase should therefore be read as a necessary technical step, not as an operational declaration. It confirms that the Navy and Lockheed Martin have accumulated the captive-carry data needed to move toward separation testing and full weapon events, while the broader LRASM program continues through operational test, cyber-survivability assessment, and C-3 development. If cleared for fleet use, the F-35C-LRASM pairing would give U.S. carrier strike groups a more flexible standoff anti-ship option against cruisers, destroyers, amphibious assault ships, and command vessels operating under electronic-warfare conditions. Its significance lies less in a single missile added to an aircraft and more in the Navy’s attempt to rebuild credible, distributed, long-range maritime strike capacity for contested theaters.

Explore More Defense News

• Land Defense News
• Naval Defense News
• Defense Aerospace News

Written by Evan Lerouvillois, Defense Analyst.

Evan studied International Relations, and quickly specialized in defense and security. He is particularly interested in the influence of the defense sector on global geopolitics, and analyzes how technological innovations in defense, arms export contracts, and military strategies influence the international geopolitical scene.