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| Hegseth's ‘Arsenal of Freedom Tour' goes to Missile Defense Agency and Space Command | |
| 2025-12-15 | |
| [JustTheNews] Hegseth made a trip down to "Rocket City" on Friday. While the publicized part of the visit focused on the new headquarters for U.S. Space Command, the War Secretary's tour also shone a spotlight on U.S. efforts to boost missile defense and weapons capabilities. Secretary of the Department of War Pete Hegseth carried out part of his “Arsenal of Freedom Tour” in the “Rocket City” of Huntsville in northern Alabama on Friday, meeting with leaders in rocket design and missile defense ahead of a visit to the future location of U.S. Space Command. Hegseth’s trip to the “Rocket City” came amidst a push by the Pentagon to revitalize the sclerotic U.S. industrial base, with the war secretary taking the chance to visit Boeing, the Missile Defense Agency, and other locations before giving a speech at an event marking the unveiling of a sign at the new Spacecom location. The war secretary said it was part of his "Building the Arsenal of Freedom Tour." Huntsville already features a large presence by defense companies such as Boeing as well as a host of key U.S. federal agencies at Redstone Arsenal, including NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, the U.S. Army Materiel Command, the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command, the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command, the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Missile and Space Intelligence Center, and the FBI’s Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center and the bureau’s Hazardous Devices School. Hegseth was greeted on the Huntsville airport tarmac by a number of U.S. military leaders, including Lt. Gen. Francisco Lozano, the Director of Hypersonic, Directed Energy, Space, and Rapid Acquisition at Redstone Arsenal. The general told Hegseth that “we’ve got lots of interesting things to show you” during the visit. ADDRESSING DIMINISHED WEAPON SUPPLY The U.S. military’s air campaign against Iranian-backed Houthi terrorists in Yemen, the U.S.’s years-long effort to supply a massive number of armaments to Ukraine in its fight against Russian invaders, and U.S. assistance in the defense of Israel against Iranian missile barrages have all eaten into the U.S. weapon supply. In addition, Taiwan is facing a possible invasion by the Chinese, with the potential the U.S. would get involved in defending the island nation against a near-peer and nuclear-armed adversary. It remains unclear whether the defense industrial base would be able to manufacture the number of weapons and ships needed to sustain a long-term engagement against the People’s Liberation Army and the Chinese navy, but Hegseth has been hard at work encouraging defense company leaders to ramp up production and ordering military leaders to innovate. Hegseth’s first stop on Friday was to the Boeing Jetplex in Huntsville, where he was given a tour of the production facility for the seeker component of the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missile, an advanced U.S. air and missile defense system. The company recently finished a big expansion of its Seeker production facility in order to handle increased demand from the War Department. LATEST TECH: THE PATRIOT SEEKER A Boeing worker in a blue Boeing-branded apron and gloves wearing Santa-themed bunny ears greeted Hegseth’s delegation as they headed to the classified factory floor to see how the Patriot seeker is made. Jim Leary, who runs business development for weapons systems at Boeing, told Just the News that “we’re showing him a Patriot Seeker — it’s the most advanced hit-to-kill seeker that is used by the military.” Boeing’s website touts that the PAC-3 Seeker won the 2025 title of the "Coolest Thing Made in Alabama" in the statewide Manufacturing Madness competition this year. Leary said the company just finished expansion of its PAC-3 seeker facility, saying it is going from 60,000 square feet to 90,000 square feet and will be operational in January. “We’re going to talk to the secretary today about this expansion and how we are self-investing to lean in,” Leary said, adding that Boeing’s leaders were also telling Hegseth about “the things we want to try to get in front of the demand signal — we want to equip the warfighters as quickly as possible with this incredible Patriot weapon system.” Lockheed Martin says that the PAC-3 family of missiles “defend against incoming threats using direct body-to-body contact that delivers exponentially more kinetic energy on the target than can be achieved with blast-fragmentation mechanisms.” Boeing announced in October that, after being awarded $2.7 billion to produce more PAC-3 seekers, the company “will deliver more than 3,000 seekers at rates of up to 750 units per year through 2030.” The company said it was working closely with Lockheed and the Army and argued that “scaling seeker output is critical to ensuring the Patriot system can continue to defend service members, civilians and critical infrastructure worldwide as threats proliferate.” “Last year was a banner year — we produced around 500 seekers that year. We are already at around 650 this year,” Leary said on Friday. “So month over month for the last rolling twelve months we have beaten production records.” Leary added: “We have been working very closely with the Department of War on potential ramp capacity questions that they’ve asked us. So we think that with what we’ve done with this expansion we’ll be able to get up into the couple thousand Seekers over the next few years. So we aren’t stopping at 650 this year — we see continued ramp up to maybe a thousand a year.” HEGSETH: "OUR WARFIGHTERS DESERVE THE BEST" “If our warfighters don’t have it, then we can’t execute. And if our enemies don’t think we have the capability, then we can’t deter,” Hegseth said as he emphasized the importance of the work Boeing was doing. “What we’ve seen today is the best. And our warfighters deserve the best, need the best, demand the best,” Hegseth told the Boeing workers, adding, “Go faster. … Urgency is our buzzword. We don’t have time to wait.” Just the News previously reported about a late June closed-door meeting that Hegseth held with some of the leaders of America’s largest military contractors, urging them to ramp up the production of critically needed munitions amidst depleted weapons stocks and a growing threat from China. Just the News also reported last week about the Secretary of the Navy’s inauguration of a new naval office aimed at expediting the development and deployment of new weapons systems and ships, declaring that “we need speed” and calling for a “wartime footing” as the challenges posed by China loom in the Pacific. “PAE FIRES” — THE PENTAGON’S EFFORT TO RAMP UP MISSILE PRODUCTION Hegseth recently announced the creation of Portfolio Acquisition Executives (PAEs) to speed up the acquiring of weaponry and to consolidate a dozen offices into a half-dozen ones — and PAE Fires, located in Huntsville, is one of the newly-reorganized acquisition efforts. The Alabama location was the next stop on Hegseth’s Huntsville visit on Friday. While Hegseth was inside the PAE Fires building receiving a classified briefing, U.S. military officers were standing outside in front of inert versions of massive and advanced weapons systems, which Hegseth would soon receive walk-through briefings on. Lieutenant Colonel Steven Moebes, an Army project manager for the Patriot missile system told Just the News that “The missiles are built by Lockheed, but Boeing makes the seeker that goes in the front, and that is the secret sauce that makes the hit-to-kill possible. It is literally the eye of the missile that when it gets close to the target the seeker takes over and it tells the missile exactly where to go.” The lieutenant colonel said he was confident that weapons production of the Patriot system would continue to ramp up in the near future. “A lot in the news about munitions acceleration popping up. We have set records for Patriot missiles production year after year over the last three years while I’ve been the manager. We’re looking at quadrupling it over the rest of the decade,” Moebes said. The lieutenant colonel said 600 of the weapons were produced this year, but that they would be “almost quadrupling it” soon. “It’ll be 2,000 for new production, and then there is another 400 for repairs… and then there is another program for the next generation of missile that we are starting next year as well,” Moebes also said. “So a lot of excitement.” Just the News asked if the U.S. burns through these weapons quickly, and Moebes said that “it comes in waves” and “it comes in spurts.” He noted that these missiles weren’t used much during the twenty-year Global War on Terrorism, but were used in the defense of Israel against Iranian missiles this year. The lieutenant general said that “the system operates as designed” and that “I’m proud of the system, and I appreciate the opportunity to talk about it.” Hegseth soon exited the PAE Fires building to receive a mini-tour and mini-briefings on the weapons systems on display outside the building. Lt. Gen. Lozano told Hegseth that “we’ve collapsed a number of organizations into PAE Fires” and said this gave him “unity of command” which would give him the ability to push to “shave years off of acquisitions.”
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