On Thursday, March 12, 2026, the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) of the USAF Materiel Command at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts, acting on behalf of the U.S. Department of Defense, awarded Boeing two production contracts with a total value of 2,434,686,841 USD under the E-7A Wedgetail airborne early warning and control aircraft acquisition program.
Image: Boeing
The first contract, valued at 2,335,411,756 USD, is a modification extending the main agreement to cover work related to the construction of the aircraft (two units in a configuration representative of the production variant). The work will be carried out primarily in Seattle, Washington, as well as in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Huntsville, Alabama; and Heath, Ohio, with completion scheduled for August 10, 2032. Initial funding of 31 million USD comes from USAF research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) funds under the FY2026 defense budget.
The second contract, valued at 99,275,085 USD, covers the procurement of sensitive components for the MESA (Multi-role Electronically Scanned Array) radar. Initial funding amounts to 4 million USD. The location and schedule are the same as for the first contract, and together both awards increase the cumulative value of the program to 5,006,666,201 USD.
Notably, the program is continuing despite a June 15, 2025 declaration by U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth outlining plans to cancel the procurement of 24 production aircraft. Despite alternative solutions presented at the time, no tangible actions have followed. The announcement did, however, trigger a response from allies: on November 13, 2025, NATO withdrew from the planned purchase of six aircraft under the AFSC (Alliance Future Surveillance and Control) program – though this appears to have been a pretext to pursue a European alternative. Meanwhile, Congress restored funding for the continuation of the program in the NDAA defense budget in January this year, forcing the Pentagon to align with legislative directives.
It is worth recalling that on January 22, 2025, Spirit AeroSystems delivered to Boeing the fuselage for the first USAF E-7A Wedgetail under an August 9, 2024 execution contract for two aircraft in a production-representative configuration. The first aircraft is currently in final assembly at Boeing’s facility in Renton near Seattle. Interestingly, the installation of the MESA radar and specialized equipment for the two E-7A aircraft is to be carried out at STS Aviation Services facilities in Birmingham, which are also working on three Wedgetail AEW aircraft for the United Kingdom.
Issues related to the configuration of the E-7A for the USAF became apparent as early as April 15, 2025, when the Department of the Air Force announced plans – remarkably – to upgrade aircraft that had only just been ordered. The planned upgrades would include replacing the Northrop Grumman MESA radar operating in the L-band, the electro-optical surveillance system, elements of the ESM (Electronic Support Measures) suite, the self-protection system, the Link 16 data link module, the JWICS (Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System), identification friend-or-foe (IFF) systems, the BMC2 (Battle Management Command and Control) system, and the tactical data link (TDL).