The Air Force probably will not award a contract to build more than 600 next-generation, silo-based intercontinental ballistic missiles more than a month or two earlier than planned, the chief executive of presumptive prime Northrop Grumman said Wednesday morning during a conference call with investors. That would put the award around July or August.
Northrop looks like a lock to win a $25 billion contract to build and deploy the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) after Boeing dropped out of the competition last year. The aerospace giant cited an unfair cost advantage for Northrop, which owns a solid-fuel rocket-propulsion business. The Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent, like the Minuteman III missiles it will replace, will be solid-fueled.
The Air Force had planned to award the GBSD Engineering and Manufacturing Development contract by September, but recently announced plans to speed up the award. On Wednesday morning’s call, Northrop Preident and CEO Kathy Warden told analysts the company thought the Air Force might move up the GBSD contract no more than one or two months.
That could help put the first missiles in the ground by 2029, Warden said.
The GBSD will eventually use W87-1 warheads with new plutonium cores made by the Department of Energy’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). A senior NNSA official in March said some of the earlier GBSD missiles to deploy might carry W87-1 warheads now used on Minuteman III missiles.
