The U.S. Defense Department has awarded a multimillion-dollar contract for a system that would knock threatening missiles out of the sky.

A company called Aerojet Rocketdyne was awarded $19.6 million to develop "enabling technologies" for the system, which will be known as Glide Breaker, it said earlier this month.

WEIRD 'WATERMELON SNOW' PICS SHOW PINKISH ANTARCTICA

“Advancing hypersonic technology is a national security imperative,” Eileen Drake, Aerojet Rocketdyne CEO and president, said in a statement. “Our team is proud to apply our decades of experience developing hypersonic and missile propulsion technologies to the Glide Breaker program.”

The Glide Breaker program is part of America's efforts to counteract hypersonic vehicles, according to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

KATHERINE JOHNSON, GROUNDBREAKING NASA SCIENTISTS DEPICTED IN 'HIDDEN FIGURES,' DIES AT 101

The company supplies solid-fueled and air-breathing propulsion systems for hypersonic flight, and it has already done previous work for related DARPA initiatives.

This is the latest futuristic endeavor for the secretive high-tech military agency. DARPA recently asked for $13.27 million for an unmanned flying gun that could handle airborne or ground-based targets.

GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Last August, the secretive agency posted a request for information on Twitter that included an ask for an underground lair. In January, a post to the Federal Business Opportunities website sought concepts that could utilize insect brains to control robots.

Earlier this month, a team from the University at Buffalo was awarded a $316,000 grant to study the brain waves and eye movements of gamers to help build an advanced AI that could control the actions of military robots.