Updated with Boeing statement.
The U.S. Air Force for the first time has released an artist’s rendering of the future Long Range Strike-Bomber (LRS-B), which it has designated the B-21. The rendering shows a flying-wing design similar to the current B-2 Spirit bomber built by Northrop Grumman, which will also build the B-21.
Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James revealed the design during a speech at the Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando on February 26. Until then, press coverage of the secretive LRS-B program has relied on previous concept drawings of stealthy aircraft, including those issued for the Next-Generation Bomber program that was cancelled in 2009. The B-21, shown as a tailless flying wing with a “W” shaped trailing edge, resembles those earlier concepts as well as the B-2, which has more of a sawtooth-shaped trailing edge.
Expected to enter service in 2025, the B-21 will replace aging Boeing B-52 Stratofortress and Rockwell B-1B Lancer bombers and operate for a time alongside the B-2. In October, the Air Force awarded Northrop Grumman a $21.4 billion engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) contract to begin building LRS-B prototypes. The EMD phase will be followed by procurement options for the first five production lots of 21 bombers out of a total desired fleet of 100. The overall estimated value of the program is $80 billion.
Losing contractor Boeing and its partner Lockheed Martin filed a formal protest of the contract award with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in early November. On February 16, the GAO announced that it had dismissed the protest, freeing Northrop Grumman to resume work on the program. Media outlets have speculated that the LRS-B contract loss played a role in Boeing’s move to name a new president of its Defense, Space and Security business—Leanne Caret—effective March 1. Caret replaces Chris Chadwick, who is retiring from the company, Boeing announced on February 24.
[Boeing said on February 26 that it will no longer contest the LRS-B contract award. It issued the following statement: “While we remain firmly convinced of the validity of the issues raised in our protest to the Government Accountability Office of the Long Range Strike-Bomber contract award to Northrop Grumman, the Boeing-Lockheed Martin team has decided not to pursue further challenges to that award, either through the GAO or in federal court. This decision was taken, as always, with the best interests of our customer and the warfighter in mind.”]
Northrop Grumman executives recently suggested the LRS-B could be built in the same hangar complex in Palmdale, Calif., where 21 B-2 bombers were assembled. Half of the facility is now used to build center fuselages for the F-35 Lightning II; the other half is empty.
