Tester Doubts Sentinel Will Meet Fielding Date of 2036

April 12, 2024

By Dan Leone

The Air Force risks not meeting the 2036 fielding date for the next generation nuclear-tipped missile to replace the Minuteman III, Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) said in a hearing this week. 

“Quite frankly, we’re running against, from my perspective, some real time issues if we’re gonna get these replaced at the three [intercontinental ballistic missile] bases by 2036,” Tester, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee, said Tuesday at a hearing on the fiscal 2025 Air Force and Space Force budget request.

Tester was referring to Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont. Minot Air Force Base, N.D., and F.E. Warren Air Force BAse, Wyo. The Air Force requests $3.7 billion for Sentinel in fiscal 2025.

The service is examining Sentinel cost saving alternatives for fiscal 2026, as it faces possible fielding delays to address a Nunn-McCurdy breach. These occur when programs exceed 25% program acquisition unit cost growth. 

The Air Force was expected to make a decision in June on the path forward for the Northrop Grumman-built missiles, which were to begin replacing the Boeing-made Minuteman III in 2030 or so.

The first Sentinels will be tipped with W87-0 warheads, a Sentinel-specific version of existing Minuteman III warheads provided by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). Later Sentinel missiles will use a W87-1 warhead, a freshly manufactured warhead designed by NNSA’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory with a newly cast first-stage core, or pit, from the agency’s Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Los Alamos officials expect to cast the first W87-1 pits this year and ramp up to 30 annually by 2028.

In January, the Air Force informed Congress of a 37% unit cost Nunn-McCurdy program breach on Sentinel–an increase in unit cost per missile from $118 million in 2020 to $162 million due not to missile development, but to unpredicted military construction costs in what will be a massive civil works project.

Such unforeseen costs include new Sentinel silos and cables, and rising concrete costs. The total program cost estimate is now more than $125 billion compared to more than $95 billion earlier.