Northrop accelerates Sentinel work

Northrop Grumman said on April 13 that it and the United States Air Force are pushing the Sentinel nuclear missile program toward a first flight in 2027 and initial capability in the early 2030s. (northropgrumman.com) The company said the revised acquisition approach is moving work faster across missile testing, infrastructure prototyping and supply-chain preparation. It said the program is using phased development to get hardware tested earlier and feed lessons back into production. (northropgrumman.com) Sentinel is the replacement for the Minuteman Three intercontinental ballistic missile, the land-based nuclear force the Air Force says has been in service for more than 50 years. Northrop says the new system includes a new three-stage booster and a rebuilt command-and-control and launch network. (northropgrumman.com 1) (northropgrumman.com 2) The program is being recast after a cost shock in 2024. The Department of Defense said on July 8, 2024 that Sentinel had triggered a critical Nunn-McCurdy breach after the Air Force reported costs above the program baseline, but the Pentagon certified it could continue. (af.mil) Congressional Research Service said the Air Force told Congress the unit cost had risen at least 37%, from $118 million to $162 million in 2020 dollars. The review also rescinded the program’s earlier Milestone B approval and sent the Air Force back to restructure the effort. (congress.gov 1) (congress.gov 2) The Government Accountability Office said in March 2026 that Sentinel’s first flight had slipped about four years from earlier estimates and is now planned for March 2028. It said the Air Force still needs a new Milestone B approval, an integrated master schedule and a finalized launch-facility design. (gao.gov 1) (gao.gov 2) The Air Force has been pointing to recent construction milestones as proof that the reset is producing usable work. On March 28, 2026, it said a silo prototype would test a modular method for building new launch facilities faster and at lower cost before full-rate production. (af.mil) (afnwc.af.mil) Air Force Global Strike Command said in March 2026 that the restructure should be completed in 2026 and that initial capability remains planned for 2030. It also said the program had finished a full-scale qualification test of the Stage-2 solid rocket motor in July 2025 after a Stage-1 qualification in March 2025. (afgsc.af.mil) Supporters of Sentinel argue the reset is now tying missile hardware, silos and command systems into one schedule after years of delay. Critics in Congress and watchdog reports have focused on whether the Air Force can control construction costs and lock down a realistic baseline before production expands. (gao.gov) (congress.gov) For now, Northrop and the Air Force are trying to show that Sentinel is no longer just a long-range modernization plan. Their message this week was that the program has moved into a phase where test dates, silo construction and acquisition decisions are supposed to line up. (northropgrumman.com)