Air Force going ‘line by line’ to bring down nuclear missile costs
By Stephen Losey
Sep 4, 2024, 04:56 PM
The Air Force "neglected" the complexity of the LGM-35A Sentinel's ground infrastructure, officials said, and is now looking to bring down costs. (Northrop Grumman)
The U.S. Air Force “underestimated” the complexity of building a sprawling network of launch centers and other ground infrastructure for its next nuclear missile, which led to severe projected cost overruns, the service’s acquisition chief said Wednesday.
Most of the Air Force’s and industry’s attention was initially focused on the missile portion of the LGM-35A Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile, and the program “really neglected the complexity of the ground infrastructure,” Andrew Hunter, the Air Force’s assistant secretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, said at the Defense News Conference in Arlington, Virginia, on Wednesday.
The Air Force wants to replace its arsenal of roughly 450 aging Minuteman III nuclear missiles, which are nearing the end of its life, with the Northrop Grumman-made Sentinel. But the projected future costs of Sentinel’s infrastructure — which include building new launch control centers across the Plains region, refurbishing existing silos for the new missiles and replacing about 7,500 miles of copper cable connecting the facilities with modern fiber optics — have skyrocketed.
The Pentagon originally expected to spend $77.7 billion on Sentinel, but the program is now likely to cost about $160 billion if it stays on its current course. The projected cost overruns alarmed lawmakers and Pentagon officials and incurred a process known as a critical Nunn-McCurdy breach.
https://www.defensenews.com/air/2024/09/04/air-force-going-line-by-line-to-bring-down-nuclear-missile-costs/
