How the US Air Force is keeping its decades-old stealth B-2 Spirit bomber lethal

The US Air Force’s B-2 Spirit bomber is a highly effective strategic bomber built to penetrate tough battlespaces, but it’s been flying for roughly three decades. Time takes a toll, meaning upgrades are needed to keep it lethal.

The Air Force is working on making the B-2 harder to see and available more often as part of ongoing modernization efforts. Over the weekend, the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center Public Affairs released details on how they are tinkering with the bomber’s software and hardware to keep at the top of its game.

Key efforts are focused on improving maintenance speed, better stealth, and improved communications.

“A lot of people talk about the B-2 as a legacy platform and that is incorrect: It is an operational platform conducting strikes today and if the flag goes up tomorrow, it will be one of the first platforms to conduct strikes,” said Lt. Col Robert Allen, materiel leader for the B-2 Advanced Programs Branch.

The B-2, made by Northrop Grumman, is an expensive $2 billion bomber that was controversial in its development, in part due to the high costs. It entered service with the Air Force in 1997 and first saw combat in the Kosovo War as part of Operation Allied Force.

Most recently, seven B-2s dropped bombs on Iran’s nuclear facilities in Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. The strategic bombers carried 14 GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bunker-buster bombs, powerful, heavy munitions designed to penetrate hardened bunkers and deeply buried underground facilities. Each bomb weighs 15 tons.

B-2 bombers are also capable of carrying nuclear payloads and are an important element of the US nuclear triad, which also includes intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched missiles. This flexibility in payload type and capacity makes the B-2 instrumental to the larger US military’s strike options — and prompts continual investments in keeping it ahead of the curve.

Quicker maintenance

A bomber is only useful if it’s ready to fly. The Air Force is working to ensure that the aircraft is ready when it needs to be by reducing downtime and increasing availability for what has traditionally been a maintenance-intensive aircraft. The service currently has 20 B-2s in active service, having lost one in a crash back in 2008.

The B-2’s significant maintenance overhaul, called program depot maintenance or PDM, that’s done every nine years typically takes 470 days. It is “an exhaustive inspection, overhaul, and repair of the bomber, with much of the work focused on restoration of the bomber’s Low Observable (LO) or stealth materials,” the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center Public Affairs said in a statement last fall.

But last October, the work was done in 379 days.

The improvements to the maintenance process included doing the fuel inspection earlier to avoid duplicate work and conducting pre-inspections to identify issues ahead of time.

“As any aircraft continues to age, you’re going to see more and more issues that need to be repaired on a PDM line,” said Col. Francis Marino, the B-2 system program manager within the Bombers Directorate, in a statement. He said that “the pre-inspection is great because it reduces the number of surprises at PDM.”

Maintaining the B-2’s equipment and repair line is also critical. In May 2024, Northrop Grumman was awarded a substantial $7 billion contract for sustainment and support work, as well as planned upgrades.

Better stealth and communications

In order to keep the bombers hidden from potential countermeasures and threats, the Air Force has been at work on several important upgrades to its stealth, as well as its comms.

Allen said that as part of a new program, the service is providing the B-2 with upgraded beyond-line-of-sight satellite communications capability, which “significantly improves the transfer time for real time mission planning data” and “will allow the operator to simultaneously receive and transmit voice communications and data which is an upgrade from what the aircraft currently has.”

The B-2’s stealth capabilities, including its low-observable, radar-absorbent materials, are also being enhanced, which is set to further reduce its radar cross section, which refers to how the bomber appears to radar operators.

The B-2 features a unique flying-wing airframe, edge alignment, and other technologies that dramatically reduce its signature across multiple frequency bands, making it difficult for enemy air-defense radars to detect, track, and target the aircraft.

“Upgrading its avionics, sensors and communication systems are essential so that we stay ahead of emerging threats and enhance our payload and versatility,” Lt. Col. Benjamin Elton, material leader, B-2 Integrated Capabilities Branch, said.

Keeping B-2s in the fight

B-2s will continue to be upgraded into the 2030s, when the Air Force plans to replace the aircraft with the new B-21 Raider, which is currently in initial production and testing after the plane took its first flight in late 2023. The B-21, also made by Northrop Grumman, will also replace the B-1 Lancer. Developments on the new bomber began in 2015.

Many of the details on the B-21’s abilities are classified, but it’s expected that the aircraft will boast better stealth, payload capacity, communications, and sensors than its predecessor. That includes carrying weapons that haven’t been invented yet.

The costs and delivery dates of the B-21 program have shifted over the years, but it’s expected to enter service this decade, and the aim is to produce at least 100 of them.

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