The Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center at Hill Air Force Base in Utah has awarded Lockheed Martin a $996 million, 16-year contract for the Mark 21A reentry vehicle, which will carry nuclear weapons on the planned LGM-35A Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile.
The contract “provides for conducting engineering, manufacturing, and design to provide a low technical risk and affordable [reentry vehicle] for Sentinel,” the Defense Department said in a contract announcement on Oct. 30.
Work will be performed at Lockheed’s King of Prussia, Penn., facility and other locations and is expected to be complete by Oct. 20, 2039, the contract award said.
The Air Force requested $475 million for ICBM reentry vehicles in the 2024 fiscal year, an increase of $359 million from last year’s $116 million appropriation. The service said it plans to increase funding in fiscal 2024 for the Mark 21A Reentry Vehicle for the LGM-35A Sentinel, which will first be deployed with a W87-0 warhead and later with a W87-1.
W87-1 will be a newly manufactured copy of the W78 warhead currently deployed on Minuteman III missiles. The warhead will also include a fresh plutonium pit cast at the Los Alamos National Laboratory sometime in the late 2020s or early 2030s. W87-0 will be a version of the existing W87 adapted for flight on Sentinel missiles.
The W87-1 warhead modification program moved into development engineering, also called Phase 6.3, in August following approval from the National Nuclear Security Administration, the Department of Defense and the Nuclear Weapons Council.
The Northrop Grumman-built Sentinel should achieve initial operational capability in May 2029, when it will begin replacing the 400 Boeing-built Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles.
In June, six Republican senators, including Deb Fischer of Nebraska, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s strategic forces panel, introduced a bill to authorize multi-year procurement authority for Sentinel.
A Defense Department report sent to Congress in September 2022 indicated a possible 10-month delay in the estimated $95.8 billion Sentinel development.
While the Air Force has said that Sentinel is to begin flight testing by the end of this year, Air Force Secretary Kendall told the House Armed Services Committee in April that it will be challenging for Sentinel to reach its initial operational capability on time.
A version of this story first appeared in affiliate publication Defense Daily.
