Jerry Petersen 
- AeroVironment has announced plans to expand its facility in Huntsville, Alabama
- The expansion is being made possible by an additional investment by the government worth $20.2 million
- The expansion is expected to bolster the production of the Next-Generation Counter-Unmanned Aircraft System Missile
AeroVironment aims to expand by 24,000 square feet its facility in Huntsville, Alabama, which will serve as the system-level integration, manufacturing and production hub for Freedom Eagle-1, otherwise known as the Next-Generation Counter-Unmanned Aircraft System Missile, or NGCM.
The defense technology company said Tuesday that the expansion, enabled by $20.2 million in additional investment by the government, is expected to result in an increase in NGCM low-rate initial production and the acceleration of the missile’s future full-rate production.
AV is working on the NGCM under a $95.9 million contract for the U.S. Army’s Long-Range Kinetic Interceptor program awarded in October 2025.
What Is the NGCM?
NGCM is an interceptor meant to defeat Groups 2 and 3 UAS. It is also intended to possess residual capability against Group 1 UAS as well as fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft.
The weapon has already undergone multiple developmental milestones like warhead testing, controlled test vehicle launches and a solid rocket motor live-fire demonstration.
According to AV Precision Strike and Defense Systems Group Executive Vice President Jimmy Jenkins, the expansion of the Huntsville facility will accelerate delivery of NGCM to the field.
“By increasing manufacturing capacity, strengthening integration, and enabling production at volume, we’re delivering a cost-effective interceptor designed to counter increasingly complex and high-volume aerial threats,” Jenkins said.
For his part, AV Chairman, President and CEO Wahid Nawabi described NGCM as “a system designed to deliver a scalable, cost-effective response to increasingly complex and high-volume aerial threats.”
Nawabi, a 2026 Wash100 Award winner, also said the facility expansion will result in “tighter integration, faster iteration and more efficient production at scale.”
What Is the Halo_Shield System?
AV’s work on counter-UAS includes the Halo_Shield system.
Unveiled at the Modern Day Marine event in Washington, D.C., in late April, the Halo_Shield system features a distributed, tile-based architecture for the detection, tracking, identification and elimination of aerial threats such as small to large unmanned aircraft, drone swarms and subsonic cruise missiles, which endanger critical infrastructure or deployed forces. The tiles are domain-specific and integrate sensors, effectors and command-and-control capabilities.
Nawabi described Halo_Shield as his company’s answer to the challenge posed by inexpensive, massed and coordinated aerial systems that are able to overwhelm traditional point defenses.
