Slips in the planned schedule for some parts of the Northrop Grumman [NOC] LGM-35A Sentinel ICBM will occur, but U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) is focused on ensuring that the Sentinel reaches initial operational capability (IOC) on time, Air Force Gen. Thomas Bussiere, the head of AFGSC, said on May 4.
In September, 2020, the Air Force awarded Northrop Grumman a potential $13.3 billion sole-source contract to develop Sentinel, which the Air Force at the time named the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (Defense Daily, Sept. 8, 2020).
“I don’t want to critique the way we do business in the department, but we’re three years into a seven-year engineering design phase,” Bussiere told a Hudson Institute audience in response to a question on possible Sentinel fielding delays. “This is a massive program. Where we are right now is there will be delays in different parts of the program, but the department has put a lot of focus on making sure we meet the operational needs’ IOC. We’ll see how the years play out, but I’m optimistic because of the level of oversight. That provides me comfort.”
Established in August, 2009, AFGSC is the Air Force component of U.S. Strategic Command and the heir to the Cold War’s Strategic Air Command.
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told a House Armed Services Strategic Forces’ panel hearing on Apr. 27 that Air Force Acquisition Chief Andrew Hunter and Pentagon Acquisition Chief Bill LaPlante had recently made an adjustment to the Sentinel program and that he believes that reaching Sentinel IOC on time is a challenge (Defense Daily, Apr. 27).
Kendall did not detail in his testimony what the Sentinel program adjustment is. Defense Daily will add any substantive response that DoD and/or the Air Force provide to identify the adjustment.
At the Apr. 27 hearing, Kendall said that Sentinel is “a very complicated, very large program, both of which adds a lot of risk to the program.
“It’s also been a very long time since we did an ICBM like this so we don’t have the sort of recent experience we’d like to have,” he testified. “At this point as far as I know, we are still holding to the schedule for IOC, but my sense of this is that I think it’s gonna be a challenge to make that.”
DoD has targeted Sentinel IOC for May, 2029. “The [Sentinel] schedule is of utmost importance to us…given that we have a no bid/no competition contractor so we’re gonna watch it closely,” Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) told Kendall at the hearing., Kendall is recused from making decisions on Sentinel because of his previous consulting work for Northrop Grumman.
A Selected Acquisition Report released last year noted that the Sentinel program has had schedule difficulties related to cleared personnel staffing, classified information technology infrastructure, and booster electronics development.
Last month, Northrop Grumman said that it had recently completed the first full-scale static test of a Sentinel solid rocket motor at the company’s test facility in Promontory, Utah, as the company readies for possible first flight of a Sentinel prototype this year (Defense Daily, March 16).
A Defense Department report sent to Congress last September indicated a possible 10-month delay in the Sentinel development effort, yet Air Force Brig. Gen. Ty Neuman, the service’s director of concepts, said in February that Northrop is still on track to perform a full-scale inaugural flight test in 2023. The Air Force’s estimated acquisition cost for the 634 Sentinel missiles is $95.8 billion, while estimated life-cycle costs into the 2070s are nearly $264 billion.
Sentinel features a three-stage booster rocket. Northrop Grumman, which has an in-house solid rocket motor business, will make the missile’s first- and second-stage solid motors.
Sentinel will initially carry the W87-0 thermonuclear warhead, refurbished versions of the W87 from the Minuteman missiles it will replace. Later in its fielding, the new missiles will be tipped with the W87-1 warhead, a newly manufactured copy of the Minuteman’s W78 warhead, but with a fresh plutonium pit. The National Nuclear Security Administration’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will provide both warheads.