Lockheed Martin received a contract to create the warhead for the new American Sentinel ICBM

The United States continues to implement a program to create a new intercontinental ballistic missile that will replace the already obsolete Minuteman III ICBMs. Northrop Grumman was joined by Lockheed Martin, which received a contract from the Pentagon to create a warhead for a new ICBM.

The US Department of Defense has entered into a nearly billion-dollar agreement with Lockheed Martin to develop a reentry vehicle for the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile. It is expected that by October 2039 the company will design and put into production a relatively cheap warhead for the MK.21A ICBM, developed on the basis of the Mk.21 warhead from the Minuteman-III ICBM. Other details of the contract have not been disclosed.

Lockheed Martin received a contract worth $996,2 million for the MK.21A warhead program. The contract provides for the development, production and design to ensure a low technical risk and affordable cost of the head part for Sentinel

- The Pentagon said in a statement.

The new Sentinel ICBM is being developed by Northrop Grumman, the details of the development are not disclosed. It is known that under the terms of the contract, the new ICBM will have to use the Mk.12A and Mk.21 warheads from the Minuteman-III ICBM. Also, the new missile should be universal; perhaps it will be placed on mobile platforms.

According to the latest data, the program for adopting the latest Sentinel ICBM is in danger of failure. Due to a banal shortage of engineers and supply chain disruptions, the planned deployment of missiles will occur not in 2029, but in 2031, when the Minuteman III ICBMs will have already been decommissioned. Extending the continued service of the oldest ICBMs in the United States is simply dangerous.

Comments

[dmi.pris1]

Sixteen years to develop? Fast, however..

[credo]

A billion here, a billion here - it’s nothing when the defense budget is 900 billion greenbacks.
Let anyone who doesn't know how to spend like the Yankees envy in silence

[Saburov_Alexander53]

Why not “to save money” order a reusable first stage of this rocket? The technology has already been tested in civilian launches. For your money - any whims!

[Civil]

The arms race is intensifying, let's see who has the stronger economy.

[Boa kaa]

Quote: credo

A billion here, a billion here - it’s nothing when...

...when you can draw as many candy wrappers as you want! I'm talking about the uncontrolled emission of dollars, not backed by ANYTHING!!! At the same time, the national debt has already exceeded 34 TRILLION!!! And at least they print more, and the rest of the world pays for it. Nooo! It's time to get out of this rotten dollar system before everything collapses and all debts are “forgiven”!!!

[smart_ups]

Well, according to the classical canons. In 16 years the estimate will change beyond recognition

[Zoldat_A]

Quote from: dmi.pris1

Sixteen years to develop? Fast, however..

With their policy as it is now, they won’t need it in 16 years.
As old Einstein suggested in a letter to Truman, in 2039 stones may be in great demand as weapons.

Of course, no one wants to die, but I think the Cuban Missile Crisis 2.0 is inevitable. Without him, America won't understand a damn thing. Moreover, when hegemony remains “completely at the bottom”, it can easily use a new nuclear crisis to scare us.
In this case, traditionally, no one will ask Europe. Her destiny is to be a springboard.

Only America doesn’t take into account that today we don’t need Cuba to get to any point in America. And the Caribbean crisis may not be a Caribbean crisis, but something else - be it Iranian, or Ukrainian, or Taiwanese or Korean.

[tralflot1832]

Only three countries have mobile ICBMs - Russia, China and the DPRK. From whom the United States will “steal” the “super-duper” missile project. Maybe you need to immediately sharpen an ax at the hands of “pocket pull masters” or put fishing hooks in your pockets.

[Zoldat_A]

Quote: tralflot1832

Only three countries have mobile ICBMs - Russia, China and the DPRK. From whom the United States will “steal” the “super-duper” missile project. Maybe you need to immediately sharpen an ax at the hands of “pocket pull masters” or put fishing hooks in your pockets.

I was surprised that the Americans were unable to create an analogue of our BZHRK. As I heard, they were unable to solve the problem of launching “from wheels” and something didn’t work out with the contact wire - only from special launch pads. With all the billions and with the entire industry.

In early childhood, I traveled a lot with my parents around the country - relatives from Brest to Fergana and Sakhalin, train tickets were inexpensive. I loved looking out the window at trains, cities, nature - I sat by the window for hours. Since childhood, I remember “ordinary refrigerators” with reinforced carts standing at stations, for some reason cordoned off by soldiers with machine guns.
Only many, many years later did I understand why the soldiers were cordoning off, as I then thought, wagons with perishable food.

I think they will now tell about mobile ICBMs, how many contracts have been concluded and with whom, what killer money has been allocated, in about eleven years, when the budget is exceeded tenfold, they will issue either a non-working or a useless prototype.
Everything is as usual - “at a certain moment something went wrong.”

[Infinity]

They could have decided that if they really wanted to, but they decided differently.

The fact is that they actually do not need such complexes, and they understand this. All projects during the Cold War were mostly needed by companies from the military-industrial complex; of course, they really wanted to get tasty contracts for them. One of the goals of creating mobile systems is to make it difficult for the enemy to destroy them before they complete their mission - i.e., launching an ICBM. We have a bunch of controversial or openly hostile neighbors and a huge land border, which is extremely problematic to cover completely. And they have: Canada, “51 states” and a NATO ally, and generally friendly Mexico, which does not need this, and whose armed forces are simply not capable of delivering such a blow. Their early warning systems are in good condition, they are being updated and modernized. By the time something reaches the mines, they will already “shoot back”; besides, there are 2 more components of the triad. And after... What difference does it make what happens after? It makes no sense for them to create mobile installations, but for us it is vital.

[tralflot1832]

Zoldat A. The Americans built the BZHRK platform, but woe is it - all railways in the USA are private, the owners asked for an unaffordable amount for the US budget to modernize railways for load-carrying capacity. Therefore, in the USA there are still wooden sleepers in some places and not only in some places Where.

[Zoldat_A]

Quote: tralflot1832

The Americans built a BZHRK platform, but woe is it - all railways in the USA are private, the owners asked for an unaffordable amount for the US budget to modernize the railway for load-carrying capacity.

I somehow didn’t think about it. And, perhaps, this is the main reason.
Here it is, capitalism...

If workers from my own company are doing repairs in my office, then, of course, they are not working for free. But they receive their salaries from the money earned by the entire company. What a trick it would be if each department head and I, as the general director, paid for the renovation of his office out of his own pocket. The plumbers in their workshop on the ground floor definitely wouldn’t have started doing repairs - all three of them would have quit.

[orionvitt]

Well, if things work out for them like with hypersound, then let them go for it. And then either the donkey dies or the padishah, well, you know.