Northrop Grumman has resumed work on a major part of the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program and has finalized a plan with the Air Force to restructure the over-budget and delayed effort, company executives said Tuesday.
“In close partnership with the Air Force, we reached agreement on a restructure approach, which will lead to re-establishment of the program baseline. The work suspension on most aspects of the command-and-launch portion of the program was lifted, and we’ve resumed work on launch facility requirements and design,” CEO Kathy Warden said during the company’s second-quarter earnings call.
After projected costs for Sentinel ballooned to $141 billion—81 percent above initial estimates—the Pentagon announced a year ago that the entire program would be restructured. The Air Force then halted work on Sentinel’s launch facilities to relook at the program’s requirements, Defense One reported in February.
Now that Northrop can move ahead, “we are back into designing those [launch facilities] and really nailing down with the Air Force the appropriate requirements that will lead us to be able to move faster and potentially reduce costs on the program from the baseline that emerged coming out of the Nunn-McCurdy [breach],” Warden said.
The Air Force had to change its original plans for the ICBM launch facilities after discovering that it could no longer reuse the Minuteman III silos, and instead would have to dig hundreds of new holes for the missiles. Officials have said that Sentinel’s exorbitant price tag is primarily due to the massive amount of ground infrastructure required for new facilities and launch centers, not from the missile itself.
Warden also said that Northrop is in “discussions” with the Air Force to speed up the production of its B-21 stealth bomber, citing an additional $4.5 billion the program received in the reconciliation bill to increase production capacity. Last quarter, Northrop took an almost $500 million loss to cover expenses for a “process change” to build the new bomber faster.
“This builds on the efforts that we in the Air Force have made previously to prepare for a more rapid production ramp. We are in discussions with the Air Force regarding the potential for an accelerated production ramp on the program,” she said.
The company is looking for a “fair and equitable business arrangement” where Northrop would invest its own money to increase production capacity and have the ability to earn improved returns on both the remaining low-rate initial production aircraft and subsequent lots, she said.
Northrop is also angling for funding from President Trump’s Golden Dome next-gen missile defense shield, which Trump says will be operational by the end of his term. A marquis, and controversial, part of the plan calls for interceptors in space that can shoot down missiles right after launch—a concept that was envisioned during Reagan’s presidency.
The company is ground-testing their space-based interceptor offering “now,” Warden said.
“These are ground-based tests today, and we are in competition, obviously, so not a lot of detail that I can provide here, but it is the capability that we believe can be accelerated and into the timeframe that the administration is looking for,” Warden said.
