B-2 bomber prime contractor North-rop Grumman says that based on the in-formation it is gleaning from the U.S. Air Force, the service's next-generation long-range strike (NGLRS) platform will complement the B-2, but not replace it when it enters service around 2018-2020.

The requirements for NGLRS are not likely to firm up until the Air Force completes an analysis of alternatives in March. At this point, Northrop officials say they are expecting the NGLRS to be a subsonic bomber with a range of 2,500-3,000 nautical miles and a 20,000-pound payload capacity. By comparison, the B-2 has a 6,000-mile range and can carry a 40,000-pound load.

Although an unmanned bomber may still be a possibility for NGLRS, it's likely that the aircraft would at least have to have the option of being manned, given its role as a nuclear bomber, according to Dave Mazur, Northrop Grumman's B-2 program manager. However, having an optionally manned design would be more expensive than either going with a manned or unmanned configuration, he said during a briefing in Washington Nov. 28.

Mindful that large windfalls of spending for B-2 upgrades are unlikely in future years, Northrop is pushing a strategy of incremental upgrades to the bomber to improve its maintainability, weapons capacity, and radar (DAILY, Sept. 28). Roughly 40 percent of the $500 million annual B-2 budget is allocated to maintenance, with the rest for new developments, including upgrades. The company is trying to keep each upgrade within a $100 million to $300 million price range, so each individual effort is not "a hard pill to swallow for the government," Mazur said.

The Air Force's current plans call for keeping the B-2 in service until at least 2058. "Obviously people in the Air Force are recognizing the fact that the B-2 is going to be around for a long time and unless we lay out a road map, we are going to [find], 10 years from now when the threat has elevated ... that the platform is no longer viable," Mazur said.

With this in mind, the company hopes the program will be able to wean itself off the congressional plus-ups it has relied on each year for various enhancements. Over its lifetime, the program has received roughly $1.37 billion in plus-ups.

"Every year we have been getting congressional plus-ups," Mazur said. "Now every year that amount has gotten smaller and smaller." For fiscal 2007, the program is receiving about $18 million in plus-up money, which includes funds to begin integration of the Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) and the 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bunker buster.

Roughly $5.6 million of the plus-up funding is for MOP integration. This is enough to begin the engineering analysis required to place the mammoth weapon on the bomber, but not enough to begin the extensive flight-testing required, Mazur said. He estimates it will require $100 million and two to three years of development to make the MOP fully compliant with the aircraft.

The current idea for dropping the 20-foot penetrator is to attach it at the nose and tail of the weapon. A collar on the nose would pyrotechnically break away first, causing the bomb to swing downward, still attached at the aft end. An aft shear pin would then break away, and the weapon would drop from the aircraft pointed downward.

"Typically, weapons separate from the airplane, but when you drop 30,000 pounds off the airplane, the airplane will separate from the weapon," Mazur quipped.