U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall says he is concerned about Northrop Grumman’s ability to develop the LGM-35A Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile on time and that the program to replace the current Minuteman III fleet is “struggling.”
Northrop’s B-21 Raider strategic stealth bomber, however, is doing “fine,” he said in a Nov. 13 forum in Washington, D.C.
“So far, the B-21 is doing fine,” Kendall told a Center for a New American Security (CNAS) virtual forum on Nov. 13. “Sentinel is, quite honestly, struggling a little bit. There are unknown unknowns that are surfacing that are affecting the program and that the department is going to have to work its way through. I’m more nervous, of the two, about Sentinel. They are both essential programs. We have to do them.”
Sentinel is a complex program, involving not only development of the missile itself, but also a vast real estate development and command-and-control infrastructure that underpin the program, Kendall said.
Even as the Air Force’s most senior civilian official, Kendall has recused himself from decisions on B-21 and Sentinel because of his previous consulting work for Northrop Grumman.
Sentinel is scheduled to achieve initial operational capability (IOC) in May 2029 to begin replacing the 400 Boeing-built Minuteman IIIs intercontinental ballistic missiles currently in service. A Defense Department report sent to Congress in September last year indicated a possible 10-month delay in the estimated $95.8 billion Sentinel development effort.
When first deployed, Sentinel will carry the W87-0 warhead and later the 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.
While the Air Force has said that Sentinel will begin flight testing by the end of this year, Kendall told the House Armed Services Committee in April that it will be a challenge for Sentinel to reach initial operational capability on time.
A version of this story initially appeared in affiliate publication Defense Daily.
