Artist’s rendition of the LGM-35A Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile. (Image: Northrop Grumman)
WASHINGTON — Northrop Grumman has reached an agreement with the Air Force on how to restructure the troubled LGM-35A Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program and has restarted work on the launch facilities, the company’s CEO said today.
Northrop was directed to pause design work for the command and launch portion of Sentinel last year, after cost projections skyrocketed by 81 percent and triggered a Nunn McCurdy breach that forced an overhaul of the program. Most of the cost growth, Air Force officials said then, revolved around ground infrastructure such as missile silos, with the service even considering recompeting that portion of the contract.
During an earnings call this morning, Northrop CEO Kathy Warden told investors that the suspension on “most aspects” of the command and launch portion of the program has now been lifted, which allowed the company to resume its work on launch facility requirements and design.
“We are back into designing those and really nailing down with the Air Force, the appropriate requirements that will lead us to be able to move faster and potentially reduce costs on the program from the baseline that emerged coming out of the Nunn-McCurdy [breach],” she said. “That is the work that we’re doing right now to bring that leg of the program in alignment with the others. While we have continued to make good progress on the missile and the support and sustaining equipment, we are focused now on bringing the command and launch [portion] to that same level of maturity and design.”
Warden added that the new agreement on restructuring the program “will lead to a re-establishment of the program baseline.”
As risk reduction and test activities for Sentinel continue, Northrop is also discussing ways to accelerate the Sentinel program with the Air Force using the $2.5 billion of additional funding it received in the recently passed reconciliation bill.
“[We] now are seeing the opportunity in [fiscal 2026] to really accelerate the program and begin working risk-reduction activities that will lead to schedule and cost improvements potentially on the program,” she said. “So that’s very exciting.”
Beyond the Sentinel program, Northrop is in talks with the Air Force on how to use the $4.5 billion included in the reconciliation bill for the B-21 Raider to increase production capacity, though Warden said Northrop would also likely have to dip into its own pockets for an expansion.
“While the ultimate outcome of these discussions remain uncertain, we currently expect any agreement to accelerate production ramp would require further investment by the company to expand production capacity, along with the opportunity to earn improved returns on the LRIP [low rate initial production] and NTE [not to exceed] production lots,” Warden said.
“We are looking to get a fair and equitable business arrangement where we would be incentivized to invest in that production capacity, and with that, would come the opportunity to earn improved returns on both the remaining lots of LRIP and the NTE units,” she later added.
Although Northrop has largely met the performance and technical milestones for the B-21 program — a rarity for an advanced aircraft still making its way through development — it has incurred losses on the fixed-price portion of its current contract due to inflationary impacts that have increased manufacturing costs.
Warden has previously said B-21 revenue would grow to the high single digits for the company, but now believes it could exceed 10 percent “depending on the final agreement for the production rate ramp on B-21.”
Another key opportunity for the company is the Golden Dome missile shield, a top defense priority for the Trump administration. Northrop is currently testing space-based missile interceptors that could become part of a future Golden Dome architecture, Warden said.
“These are ground-based tests today, and we are in competition, obviously,” she said. “So not a lot of detail that I can provide here, but it is a capability that we believe can be accelerated and into the time frame that the administration is looking for.”
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Author: Valerie Insinna
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