Anthem is a ground-launched cruise missile built by Covenant Industries, a US-Israeli defence startup founded in 2024. Covenant states Anthem carries a payload above 200 kg, has flown more than 200 tests, and targets a mid-six-figure unit cost at full production.
Covenant emerged from stealth on 9 September 2026, and Anthem is not a US programme of record.
Covenant holds a US Army Other Transaction Agreement for accelerated test and qualification, with a fiscal year 2027 demonstration.
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Key facts
| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
| System name | Anthem |
| US military designation | Not disclosed (none announced) |
| Category | Ground-launched cruise missile |
| Manufacturer | Covenant Industries (trading as Covenant) |
| Country of origin | United States, with Israeli and German production |
| Founded | 2024 |
| Range | Not disclosed. The War Zone reported roughly 1,200 km on unconfirmed sourcing |
| Payload | More than 200 kg (Covenant-stated) |
| Warhead type | Not disclosed |
| Propulsion | Solid rocket motor for launch, heavy-fuel jet engine for cruise (reported) |
| Guidance and seeker | Not disclosed |
| Speed | Not disclosed |
| Unit cost | Mid-six figures (Covenant-stated); US$500,000 cited by Lt. Gen. Frank Lozano |
| Maiden flight | August 2025 (Covenant-stated) |
| Production start | Q1 2027, Grand Prairie, Texas and Leipzig, Germany |
| Operators | None. No fielded operator |
What is the Covenant Anthem missile?
The Covenant Anthem missile is a low-cost cruise missile built for affordable mass rather than peak performance. Covenant calls it a “long-range, heavy payload weapon system” and avoids the term cruise missile.
Aviation Week and Defense News both classify Anthem as a cruise missile. A maritime variant, Maritime Anthem, is in development.
Who makes Anthem?
Covenant Industries is a privately held US company founded in 2024, with an Israeli subsidiary, Covenant Technologies Ltd. Its careers portal gives the headquarters as Washington, DC.
Michael Kaufman is co-founder and chief executive, a dual US-Israeli citizen and former investor at Thiel Capital and Thiel Macro.
Ofir Dayan is a co-founder, named in Kaufman’s a16z essay and reported by Tectonic Defense as chief technology officer. Startmag and a Financial Times summary call him a former Iron Dome engineer at Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, unconfirmed by Covenant.
Abby Denburg is president and chief growth officer. Former US Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks and former US Representative Mike Garcia advise Covenant.
Covenant states it raised over US$250 million from Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, Lux Capital, 8VC, Aleph and Lightspeed Venture Partners. CTech reported a valuation above US$1 billion.
Covenant states roughly US$150 million in booked orders, a figure absent from public contract records.
Anthem specifications
Payload is the only performance figure Covenant gives directly, at more than 200 kg. A Financial Times report cited “up to 250 kg”, conflicting with Covenant’s own number.
Range is not disclosed. Every figure in circulation traces to one line in The War Zone citing “unconfirmed reports” of roughly 1,200 km.
The Times of Israel reported Anthem’s range as comparable to JASSM-ER, at 600 miles or more.
Propulsion is reported, not stated. The War Zone describes a solid rocket motor for launch and an underslung heavy-fuel jet engine for cruise.
Warhead type, speed, length, diameter, launch weight and the guidance package are all not disclosed.
A Covenant executive told DefenseScoop that Anthem can “collaboratively home on target” but declined to explain it. No source describes the seeker or GPS-denied navigation.
How Anthem is launched
Covenant designed its own launcher and mission-planning software to field this ground-launched cruise missile in volume, avoiding legacy launch systems that Denburg told DefenseScoop have limited capacity for the role.
Launcher capacity, vehicle base, reload time and cost are not disclosed.
Pentagon trial imagery shows the missile on a tricycle undercarriage, indicating booster-assisted takeoff from a runway. The War Zone called this the crudest arrangement in its class.
Maritime Anthem is being adapted for naval use under a roughly US$70 million contract with the US Navy Rapid Capabilities Office.
Whether it is canisterised, deck-launched or vertical-launch compatible is not disclosed. No air-launched Anthem exists.
Anthem programme timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 2024 | Covenant Industries founded and incorporated in the United States |
| August 2025 | Anthem maiden flight (Covenant-stated) |
| June 2026 | Test campaign in Israel; German defence officials invited to observe, per CTech |
| July 2026 | Africa Multidomain Training and Experimentation Center established at Tan-Tan, Morocco |
| July 2026 | Project Convergence Capstone 6 at Fort Irwin, California. Covenant states Anthem conducted a live-fire demonstration |
| 3-7 August 2026 | First industry-partner live fire at the Morocco centre under the Secretary of the Army’s Test Range Expansion Initiative. The AFRICOM release names neither Covenant nor Anthem |
| 12 August 2026 | Haaretz identifies the weapon tested in Morocco as Covenant’s |
| 9 September 2026 | Covenant exits stealth. Grand Prairie plant opens. Army and Navy agreements disclosed |
| 11 September 2026 | German defence ministry confirms ongoing negotiations, per Defense News |
| Q1 2027 | Serial production scheduled to begin in Texas and Germany |
What makes Anthem different: allied sovereign production
Anthem’s distinguishing feature is not performance but a manufacturing model built on three national production lines that allied governments can buy from directly.
Covenant states its Grand Prairie, Texas plant covers 105,000 sq ft and opened on 9 September 2026. A 110,000 sq ft site sits in Saxony, Germany, and a 32,000 sq ft facility in northern Israel.
Kaufman told Reuters that on the German line, “less than 5% of the bill of materials comes from anywhere outside of Europe.” Allied buyers therefore acquire from an industrial base inside their own borders.
Defense News reported a limit on that claim. The Leipzig site is a leased former metalworking plant under non-munitions rules, so it handles no explosives.
Final energetics integration for European rounds must happen elsewhere, and Covenant has not said where.
Covenant states Anthem was designed around readily available components, with no part relying on a sole source.
The company claims agreements with multiple solid rocket motor suppliers and long-term arrangements covering thousands of jet engines. No supplier is named.
No source describes additive manufacturing, robotic assembly or tooling at any Covenant site. American Machinist noted the absence of process detail.
Covenant states the Texas line ramps to 5,000 units annually. The War Zone and The Times of Israel report the Israeli line at 2,000 a year.
Combined targets are contested. Those two outlets give a ceiling of 12,000 rounds a year, while a Financial Times report gives 15,000.
Kaufman told Reuters the German line aims for “5,000 by 2028.” The Jerusalem Post reported an initial German figure of 1,000 per year.
Anthem compared to rival cruise missiles
| System | Maker | Range | Payload | Unit cost | Launch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anthem | Covenant Industries | ~1,200 km (unconfirmed, The War Zone) | >200 kg (Covenant) | Mid-six figures (Covenant) | Ground |
| Tomahawk Block V | RTX | 1,600+ km | ~450 kg | US$3.64m (Maritime Strike Tomahawk) | VLS, ground |
| JASSM-ER (AGM-158B) | Lockheed Martin | >900 km | 450 kg | US$1.1m-2.6m (reported range) | Air |
| Barracuda-500M | Anduril Industries | >500 nm (~930 km) | 45 kg | ~US$200,000 (reported, SLB-500M) | Air, ground, pallet |
| AGM-188A Rusty Dagger | Zone 5 Technologies | >930 km (Parsch, approximate) | 45 kg | Not disclosed | Air |
| RAACM-ER / GHOST | CoAspire | >1,000 nm (manufacturer-attributed) | Not disclosed | Not disclosed | Air, ground, naval |
| Taurus KEPD 350 | Taurus Systems | ~500 km | 481 kg | >US$1m | Air |
Anthem occupies a gap in the low-cost cruise missile field. Barracuda-500M, Rusty Dagger and CMMT all cost less but carry a fraction of the payload.
Rusty Dagger carries roughly a fifth of Anthem’s stated payload at about three-quarters of Anthem’s reported range, on figures Andreas Parsch flags as approximate.
Tomahawk Block V and JASSM-ER carry heavier warheads at roughly two to seven times the cruise missile cost. Rusty Dagger is combat-proven in Ukraine, and Anthem is not.
Anthem’s absence from the US affordable mass frameworks is notable. Anduril, CoAspire and Zone 5 hold the FAMM framework agreements, and those three plus Leidos hold Low-Cost Containerized Munition agreements.
Covenant holds neither, leaving it outside the multiyear vehicles that carried rivals to funded quantity across US affordable strike programmes.
Covenant’s route runs the other way: sovereign allied lines first, as with Anduril Barracuda production in Poland and the licensing seen in Project Brakestop.
Who operates Anthem?
No armed force operates Anthem, and it holds no programme-of-record status in any country.
Contracted: the US Army holds an Other Transaction Agreement for Anthem test and qualification, with a fiscal year 2027 demonstration.
Lt. Gen. Frank Lozano, the US Army’s Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Fires, told DefenseScoop he did not want to “limit myself to a $500,000 Covenant cruise missile solution,” adding that Covenant is “in the mix.”
Contracted: the US Navy Rapid Capabilities Office holds a roughly US$70 million Maritime Anthem agreement, including Defense Exportability Features funding.
Contracted: Covenant states one unnamed European customer has signed, with German-built rounds due before end-2026.
Reported: Germany’s defence ministry confirmed to Defense News on 11 September 2026 that negotiations are ongoing, driven by delayed Taurus modernization and the early-stage European Long-Range Strike Approach.
Prospective: Covenant intends to build UK production capability, though no UK contract or site exists.
Morocco hosted the August 2026 Tan-Tan live fire as a test host, not a customer.
What is not publicly known about Anthem
- Range. The roughly 1,200 km figure rests on one unconfirmed line in The War Zone and conflicts with The Times of Israel’s 600-mile comparison.
- Guidance and seeker. No seeker type, terminal guidance mode or target recognition has been described.
- “Collaboratively home on target.” Covenant used the phrase to DefenseScoop and declined to explain it.
- GPS-denied navigation. Covenant makes no claim, unlike rivals that treat it as a headline requirement.
- Warhead type. Weight only, with no unitary, penetrator or submunition distinction.
- Maritime Anthem. No launch method, timeline or ship class given.
- Suppliers. Neither the solid rocket motor vendors nor the jet engine maker is named.
- Contract records. No US Department of War contract announcement or FY2027 budget line exists.
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Frequently asked questions about the Covenant Anthem missile
What is the Covenant Anthem missile?
The Covenant Anthem missile is a ground-launched cruise missile from Covenant Industries, a US-Israeli startup founded in 2024. Covenant states Anthem carries a payload above 200 kg, has flown over 200 tests, and targets a mid-six-figure unit price at full production.
Who makes Anthem?
Covenant Industries makes Anthem. Covenant is a private US firm in Washington, DC, with an Israeli unit, Covenant Technologies Ltd. Michael Kaufman is co-founder and chief executive, Ofir Dayan is a co-founder, and Abby Denburg is president and chief growth officer.
How much does the Anthem cruise missile cost?
Covenant has not published an Anthem unit price, stating only a mid-six-figure target at full rate. Lt. Gen. Frank Lozano publicly cited a “$500,000 Covenant cruise missile solution”, a figure that a Covenant representative said it could not confirm to DefenseScoop.
What is the range of Anthem?
Covenant does not disclose Anthem’s range, and every figure in circulation is unverified. The War Zone reported roughly 1,200 km on unconfirmed sourcing, while The Times of Israel reported an Anthem range comparable to JASSM-ER, at 600 miles or more.
What warhead does Anthem carry?
Covenant states Anthem carries a payload of more than 200 kg, while a Financial Times report gave up to 250 kg. The warhead type is not disclosed: no source specifies a unitary, penetrator or submunition warhead, and no hard-target claim exists.
How is Anthem launched?
Anthem is launched from the ground using a launcher Covenant designed for it, with trial imagery showing booster-assisted takeoff from an airstrip on a tricycle undercarriage. Maritime Anthem is in development with the US Navy, and no air-launched Anthem exists.
Is Anthem in production?
Anthem is not yet in serial production, though Covenant states it has flown more than 200 tests. Serial production begins in Q1 2027 at Grand Prairie, Texas and at Covenant’s Saxony site in Germany, with an Israeli line rated at 2,000 rounds yearly.
Who is buying Anthem?
No armed force operates Anthem, though the US Army holds an Other Transaction Agreement covering Anthem test and qualification. The US Navy Rapid Capabilities Office holds a US$70 million Maritime Anthem deal, and Germany confirmed live negotiations in September 2026.
How does Anthem compare to the Tomahawk?
Anthem carries a smaller warhead than Tomahawk Block V at a far lower price. Maritime Strike Tomahawk costs roughly US$3.64 million per round with a warhead near 450 kg, against Covenant’s mid-six-figure target and stated Anthem payload above 200 kg.
