MILTECH - America's newest stealth missile is making its public debut after years of secret development and as part of the Pentagon's response to growing concerns about future conflict with China.
The B-21 Raider is America's first new fighter jet in over 30 years. Almost all parts of the program are classified. Ahead of its unveiling Friday at the Air Force Base in Palmdale, Calif., only a sketch of the fighter jet has been released. These few images reveal that the Raider is similar to the dark stealth missile it will eventually replace, the B-2 Spirit.
The bomber is part of the Pentagon's efforts to modernize the third leg of its nuclear arsenal, which includes silo-launched nuclear warheads and warheads, as it moves from A decade-long anti-terrorist campaign is rapidly improving China's military. China is on track to have 1,500 nuclear weapons by 2035, and its advantages in hypersonics, cyber warfare, space capabilities and other areas present "the most important challenge in the system for the national security of the United States and the system free and open world," the Pentagon said. this week in its annual report on China.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and other guests will be on hand Friday to watch the public unveiling of the missile. "We need a new missile for the 21st century that will help us deal with more complex threats, such as the threat we fear that we may face one day from China, from Russia," Deborah Lee James, the secretary of the Air Force said. when the Raider contract was announced in 2015. "The B-21 is more powerful and can take on these tougher threats."
While the Raider may look similar to the B-2, once inside the similarities end, said Kathy Warden, general manager of Northrop Grumman Corp., which builds the Raider. "The way it works indoors is very advanced compared to the B-2, because the technology has developed so much in terms of computing power that we can now integrate software from B-21,” Warden said.
Other changes may include advanced skin-enhanced materials to make the bomber more difficult to detect, a new way to control the electric current, so that the bomber can evade enemy radars. and transform itself as something else, with exciting technology, many security analysts said. . In a fact sheet, Northrop Grumman, based in Falls Church, Va., said it uses "innovative and innovative methods to ensure that the B-21 will overcome the range of obstacles and deny the environment it will face" .
Warden could not discuss the specifics of these technologies, but said that the mine would be a theft.
"When we talk about low monitoring, we mean incredibly low monitoring," Warden said. "You'll hear it, but you won't really see it."
six B-21 Raiders produced; The Air Force plans to order 100 that can deliver nuclear weapons or conventional bombs and can be manned or unmanned. The Air Force and Northrop point to the rapid development of the Raider: the bomber went from contract to debut in seven years. Other programs for new troops and ships took decades.
The price of the bomb is not known. The Air Force initially bought 100 planes at a cost of $550 million each in 2010 dollars — about $753 million today — but it's unclear how much the Air Force is spending.
The fact that the prize is not guarded by government officials. "It can be a big challenge for us to do a thorough investigation of a program like this," said Dan Grazier, a senior security policy researcher at the Project on Government Oversight. “It's easy to say that the B-21 is still in the process before it actually flies. Because it's only when one of these programs goes into real testing that the real problem is discovered. And that's when the schedule starts to disappear and the prices really start to go up."
The Raider won't make its first flight until 2023. However, using advanced computers, Warden said, Northrop Grumman tested the Raider's performance using a digital twin, a virtual replica that was exposed.
The B-2 was considered as an aircraft of 100 aircraft, but the Air Force ended up building 21, due to high costs and the changed security environment after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Fewer than that are ready to fly on any given day because of the need for aging bombers, said Todd Harrison, aviation expert and managing director of Metrea Strategic Insights.
The B-21 Raider, which got its name from the 1942 Doolittle raid on Tokyo, will be smaller than the B-2 to increase its range, Warden said.
In October 2001, B-2 pilots set a record by flying 44 hours straight to drop the first bomb in Afghanistan after the September 2001 bombings. Attack 11. But the B-2 often flies long distances, since there are few hangars in the world that can accommodate its long wingspan. This limits where the B-2 can land for essential aircraft maintenance. And the hangars should be air-conditioned - because the windows of the spirit do not open, the hot weather can produce cockpit electronics. The new Raider will also get new hangars, to accommodate the size and complexity of the missile, Warden said.
0 Comments