USSOCOM has selected Aeon Industrial for a $13.8-million contract covering further development, testing and initial low-rate production of the company’s Zeus missile system. The award includes weapon upgrades, preliminary safety and certification work, and deliveries during the low-rate initial production phase. It will also examine the missile’s suitability for additional operational roles and compatibility with other launch platforms. The agreement builds on two years of internally funded development and advances Zeus into a formal government-backed programme. To support production growth, Aeon is establishing a manufacturing facility near Austin, Texas, intended to handle Zeus and other tactical weapon systems. Designed as a modular precision-strike weapon, Zeus is available in a shoulder-fired configuration weighing about 20 pounds and measuring 30 inches long, allowing deployment in restricted and urban environments. Operators can configure the weapon for different targets by changing its warhead and seeker. The system also uses Aeon’s ODIN targeting software for target identification and tracking, including persistent tracking, reacquisition after temporary concealment and software updates at forward operating locations. While the current contract centres on the shoulder-fired version, the company says the architecture also supports vehicle-, surface vessel- and drone-launched configurations.
