January 14, 2022 | International, Aerospace
August 27, 2019 | International, Aerospace
Northrop Grumman Expands Plant 42 as B-21 Continues Development
By BRIAN EVERSTINE
PALMDALE, Calif.—Northrop Grumman is expanding its side of the secretive Plant 42 facility here and hiring thousands of employees while development of the new B-21 bomber remains largely under wraps.
An older tan hangar-turned-production facility sits next to recently built white and blue buildings. Another large hangar is still under construction, and trailers serving as offices are lined up on-site.
Heavy equipment dug through the dirt as speakers praised the evolution of the legacy B-2, which is helping lay the foundation for its next-generation successor, at a recent birthday ceremony at Northrop's facilities.
The company won't specifically say whether the growth is driven by the B-21 Raider, only that the new construction is for “programs.” But it has funneled “multiple hundreds of millions” of dollars to improve Plant 42, according to Janis Pamiljans, the president of Northrop's aerospace sector. The company has also grown from about 25,000 to 28,000 employees in California alone since 2015 and continues to hire.
“We've been on a tremendous hiring spree ... and you can see the kind of structures being built,” Pamiljans said.
Northrop moved some of its other systems, such as the RQ-4 Global Hawk and the MQ-4 Triton, to new locations so it can better serve production of those aircraft. The shifts also free up space for other endeavors.
Reporters were not allowed near the new facilities during an escorted visit throughout the Southern California site earlier this week. No other companies that are involved in B-21 development were visible on the premises.
The promise of a new design remained even as Northrop and the Air Force celebrated the B-2 turning 30 years old at an Aug. 20 event. The “Spirit of Missouri” was parked in front of a hangar that is now partially used to produce F-35 jet fuselage and is partially dedicated to “other programs,” Pamiljans said.
The B-21 is eventually expected to replace the stealthy B-2 over the coming decades. Northrop plans to use the Spirit program's focus on supportability, sustainability, and mission-capable rate as the blueprint for maintaining the B-21 as well.
Northrop officials say they are taking lessons learned in the development and sustainment of low-observable technology, a key to the B-2's stealth, and applying them to these “other programs,” Pamiljans said.
“The B-2 is setting the path, course for the B-21,” Pamiljans said. “What we've learned on B-2, we're finding baselined into the design of the B-21.”
Eighth Air Force Commander Maj. Gen. James Dawkins told reporters in Palmdale that aspects of B-2 sustainment like computers, maintenance, and materials can naturally be leveraged for the B-21.
He said the platform's cost and schedule performance are “right on expectations.”
“From that standpoint, it's been very successful so far,” he said. “We're really happy about the way Northrop has approached this.”
The Air Force remains mum about the state of B-21 production, other than to occasionally say it is going well. Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Stephen Wilson said last month the service is planning first flight of the B-21 in December 2021.
The service is so far sticking with its plan to buy at least 100 of the bombers to go with 75 B-52s that will remain in service.
The Air Force and Northrop continue to crunch overall production numbers, and haven't settled on an exact strategy for phasing out the B-2 as the B-21 comes online. There will be a transition period when both the B-2 and B-21 will be part of the strategic bomber fleet, Dawkins said.
“I'm optimistic they will take lessons learned” from the B-2 for “any type of program” the company is developing, he added.
On the same subject
-
-
July 15, 2019 | International, Other Defence
Army to Receive 7.62mm Squad Marksman Rifles as Early as Next Year
By Matthew Cox Heckler & Koch Defense Inc. will soon begin delivering thousands of 7.62mm squad-designated marksman rifles to the Army to give infantry and other close-combat units a better chance of penetrating enemy body armor. H&K will deliver "between 5,000 and 6,000" variants of the G28 rifle, which the Army plans to issue as its new squad designated marksman rifle (SDMR), according to a July 12 H&K news release. Under the agreement, the rifles will be manufactured by H&K in Oberndorf, Germany, and will begin to arrive in the H&K-USA facility in Columbus, Georgia, early next year, according to the release. Once there, H&K-USA workers will install scopes and mounts purchased by the Army under a separate agreement. "This is a significant achievement for Heckler & Koch," H&K-USA's chief operating officer, Michael Holley, said in the release. "The HK SDMR system will add much-needed capabilities to virtually every squad in the Army. We are honored by this opportunity." The new SDMRs are part of an interim effort to make squads more lethal ahead of the Army's fielding of the Next-Generation Squad Weapon system sometime in 2022, service officials have said. In May 2017, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told Senate Armed Services Committee members that the service's current M855A1 Enhanced Performance Round will not defeat enemy body armor plates similar to the U.S. military-issue rifle plates such as the Enhanced Small Arms Protective Insert, or ESAPI. As a short-term fix, the Army selected the G28 as its M110A1 Compact Semi-Automatic Sniper System in 2016, to be used with the service's new 7.62mm enhanced performance round to give squads more penetrating power. In the past, the Army relied on the Enhanced Battle Rifle, or EBR, 14 -- a modernized M14 equipped with an adjustable aluminum stock with pistol grip, scope and bipod legs -- to fill the growing need by infantry squads operating in Afghanistan to engage enemy fighters at longer ranges. But the EBR is heavy, weighing just under 15 pounds unloaded. The M110A1 weighs about 11 pounds. In the long term, the Army is working with gunmakers to develop the new Next Generation Squad Weapon (NGSW) that is slated to fire a special, government-produced 6.8mm projectile that promises higher velocities at greater ranges, service officials say. The program is being designed to produce an automatic rifle version to replace the M249 squad automatic weapon and a carbine version to replace the M4 carbine. Army officials said recently that they expect to begin receiving prototypes of the NGSW in July and August and that the weapon could be fielded to units beginning in late fiscal 2020. https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/07/12/army-receive-762mm-squad-marksman-rifles-early-next-year.html
-
July 6, 2021 | International, C4ISR
Rafael combines AI and automatic target recognition in new Sea Breaker missile
The need for better target recognition is important in environments with moving targets and near civilians.