Brian Bradley
NS&D Monitor
6/5/2015
The Air Force preliminarily estimates the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent will cost $62.3 billion from Fiscal Year 2015 to FY 2044 for development, procurement and military construction (MILCON), a service spokesperson told NS&D Monitor this week. The Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center’s (AFNWC’s) ICBM System Program Office (SPO) completed this draft estimate—its most recent for the planned Minuteman 3 follow-on— in February, Air Force spokesperson Ed Gulick said in a written response. The overall draft estimate outlines projections for GBSD’s three major components, including $48.5 billion for flight systems, $6.9 billion for weapon system command and control (WSC2), and another $6.9 billion for infrastructure. The numbers reflect “initial” WSC2 and infrastructure estimates not included in the GBSD AoA completed last summer, and an “updated” flight systems estimate, according to Gulick.
The ICBM SPO’s draft projection also specifies estimates for the research and development and procurement phases of each GBSD component. The draft outlines $35.5 billion for procurement and $13 billion for R&D of flight systems, $3.7 billion for procurement and $3.2 billion for R&D of WSC2, and $5.9 billion for procurement, $0.7 billion for MILCON and $0.3 billion for R&D of weapons infrastructure.
Draft RFP Expected in Coming Months
FY 2016 budget documents indicate that the Air Force has budgeted $945 million for the program over the Future Years’ Defense Program. The GBSD will be a new start program in FY 2016, and the full House and Senate Armed Services Committee’s versions of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2016 would grant the Pentagon’s $75.2 million request for next fiscal year. The Air Force has not publicly announced when it anticipates releasing a draft RFP, but industry officials expect the service to release the document in the next few months. “We expect to see a draft request for proposal this summer that will cover the entire weapon system replacement activities,” one industry official told NS&D Monitor.
House Appropriators Want More Info on GBSD
As the Air Force prepares for R&D on the GBSD, members of the House Appropriations Committee are seeking more information about the weapon system. Before the committee reported to the House floor its version of the Fiscal Year 2016 defense spending bill this week, it also approved by unanimous voice vote during its markup an amendment that states that the Defense Secretary would be required to report to Congress GBSD characteristics, including updated cost and quantity estimates. Specifically, the bill would require the Defense Secretary to report an estimate of the annual and total cost for R&D and procurement for the entire GBSD fleet, and an estimate of the annual cost of the weapon system as a proportion of the annual cost of the nuclear triad as well as yearly defense spending.
MM3 Sustainment Contract
While Congress seeks more information about the GBSD, the Air Force is still working to sustain the current Minuteman 3. Earlier this week, the Defense Department announced that AFNWC awarded Boeing a $466.5 million indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract to repair the ICBM’s guidance sets. Work will be performed at Boeing’s Heath, Ohio, facility, which has regularly housed ICBM guidance repairs and is the only facility that supports all three legs of the U.S. nuclear triad, Peggy Morse, Boeing Vice President of Directed Energy and Strategic Systems, told NS&D Monitor in March. DoD expects work on the contract to be complete by June 2, 2021.
