Modernizing The Military: The Nuclear Triad Gets Go Ahead with New $2B Contract

Missiles and more missiles to deliver nuclear weapons by air, land and sea. In its latest review of long-term triad costs, the Congressional Budget Office estimated in May that if carried out, the Pentagon and Energy Department’s nuclear forces plans would cost a total of $634 billion through 2030. The Air Force declined to release the new cruise missile’s development and procurement cost estimates.

Raytheon Awarded $2 Billion Contract for Nuclear Cruise Missile

By Anthony Capaccio     ‎July‎ ‎1‎, ‎2021‎ ‎15‎:‎05

                                        

• Air Force to buy up to 1,000 missiles for B-52, B-21 planes
• Award comes as Pentagon starts new Nuclear Posture Review

" Raytheon Technologies Corp. was awarded a contract worth as much as $2 billion to develop a new nuclear cruise missile, the first major Biden administration move to field replacements to America’s aging nuclear arsenal, the Pentagon said Thursday.

 

 

 

The Air Force plans to buy up to 1,000 Long-Range Standoff Weapons to replace the Air Launched Cruise Missile first fielded in 1982. The new weapon, if fielded, would be carried on B-52 and B-21 bombers.

The Air Force contract indicates that modernizing the nation’s Cold War-era capacity to deliver nuclear weapons by air, land and sea remains a key Pentagon priority under the Biden administration after it was jumpstarted by President Barack Obama and continued by President Donald Trump.

The next-generation cornerstones of the so-called nuclear triad are the Navy’s Columbia-class submarine, the Air Force’s new ICBM known as the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent and an upgraded nuclear command and control infrastructure.

Work on the new cruise missile will be performed in Tucson, Arizona, and is expected to be completed in early 2027. It will form the basis of a production decision later that year, the Air Force said Thursday. The missile would be paired up with a new W80-4 warhead under development by the Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration. The W80-4 will be the first warhead designed for use with a new missile since nuclear testing ended in 1992. The integration and certification must be accomplished without additional explosive nuclear testing

. . .The contract award was made even as the Pentagon launches a new Nuclear Posture Review, which could revive debate about America’s nuclear strategy, the types of weapons that should be procured and their costs.

. . .The Government Accountability Office warned last year that the National Nuclear Security Administration was sticking to a September 2025 first delivery date for the W80-4 warhead in spite of program risks. NNSA, which manages the development of U.S. nuclear weapons, did a credible job developing the program’s cost estimate but “has introduced potential risk” by adopting “an unrealistic” first delivery date “that is more than 1 year earlier than the date projected by the program’s own schedule risk analysis,” GAO said.