The Pentagon's next-generation missile interception system - the Department of Defense is competitively developing a weapon to replace existing land-based interceptors within the United States - will cost nearly $18 billion throughout the entire project period. An independent cost estimation report from the Office of Cost Assessment and Project Evaluation (CAPE) of the US Department of Defense has determined that the total cost of developing NGI will reach approximately $13 billion, while the total cost of procurement, operation, and maintenance will be slightly above $13 billion and $2 billion per person. The Pentagon announced in August 2019 that it intended to build a new interception system after the sudden death of the redesigned Kill Vehicle (RKV) program, which would upgrade Ground Based Intercept Systems (GBI) to more reliably track more complex threats. These interceptors constitute the mid ground defense system, which has been deployed on the mainland of the United States to defend against potential threats from North Korea and Iran. RKV will be specially upgraded to GBI's Extraatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) or warhead, designed to destroy targets in high-speed collisions after separation from booster rockets. Due to issues encountered during the experiment, EKV requires technical modifications, therefore the Missile Defense Agency has decided to launch the RKV program. Meanwhile, after the engineering change, the organization has successfully tested the GMD system several times using EKV.

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RKV strives to solve technical problems that cannot be resolved, resulting in schedule delays and increased costs. Since then, the US Department of Defense has embarked on a new effort to completely replace GBIs located at Grizzly Castle in Alaska and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California with new NGIs. The Pentagon has selected Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman to compete and jointly develop and build interceptor missiles. These companies defeated teams from Boeing, including General Atomics and Aerojet Rocketdyne. According to a Pentagon announcement on March 23, the contract is expected to have a maximum value of $1.6 billion through fiscal year 2022, and will bring both designs into the technology development and risk reduction phases of the project. The CAPE summary states that the CAPE estimation considers retaining the procurement plans of two NGI contractor teams during the Critical Design Review (CDR) phase. The Missile Defense Agency will select a supplier for final testing and production.