The federal shutdown has halted discussions about accelerating the B-21 bomber program, Northrop Grumman CEO Kathy Warden said Tuesday, six months after the company sank hundreds of millions of dollars into speeding up production.
“We are in the midst of those discussions. They’ve been held up a bit because of the government shutdown and the availability of resources to continue those discussions during this time,” Warden said during the company’s third-quarter earnings call. “We expect those to resume.”
Air Force spokespeople did not immediately return a request for comment.
In April, Northrop Grumman announced it took a nearly $500 million hit to increase production rates. The defense contractor has been working with the service after $4.5 billion aimed at increasing manufacturing for the B-21 bomber was approved this summer following the passage of the reconciliation bill.
Warden said “in the coming months” the company expects to have more clarity on what accelerating production would look like. The Air Force has announced plans to buy 100 B-21 bombers, although some officials have made a pitch to field nearly 150 aircraft.
The CEO said during the earnings call that the company has been working diligently on the B-21 program and expects awards tied to the low-rate initial production on the next bomber lots in the final quarter of 2025.
“With the progress we’ve made, we remain on track to receive the LRIP lot three and lot five advanced procurement awards later this year,” Warden said. “We continue discussions with the Air Force on the framework for an agreement to accelerate the B-21 production rate.”
Flight testing for the bomber began in November of 2023. Last month, a second B-21 aircraft test aircraft took flight. Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota is set to receive the first aircraft.
Warden said Northrop Grumman continues “to make good progress” on the Air Force’s behind-schedule, over-budget Sentinel ICBM. Just the day before, the company announced that the program had completed a critical design review for the Sentinel digital command and control infrastructure—marking a key milestone to build, test, and qualify the system.
Last year, the Pentagon announced a substantial restructuring of the program after costs skyrocketed to $141 billion—81 percent above initial estimates. As a result, work was temporarily paused on Sentinel. The defense company announced in July it had resumed work on the launch facilities after the Air Force admitted it couldn’t reuse the existing Minuteman III launch silos and would have to dig hundreds of new holes instead.
Tuesday marked 21 days into the government shutdown with no immediate resolution in sight between President Donald Trump’s administration and congressional Democrats. Amid the partisan gridlock, Warden said there’s still a bipartisan interest in national-security spending, and she seemed confident Northrop will emerge from the shutdown unscathed.
“It is unclear how long it might persist, but we are hopeful it will be resolved in the near term,” she said. “Assuming it is, we do not anticipate any significant impact on our financial results. In the meantime, we remain focused on executing our programs and delivering on our commitment.”
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