{"id":71694,"date":"2025-10-21T18:50:32","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T18:50:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2025\/10\/21\/northrop-eyes-more-b-21-contracts-air-force-deal-to-speed-production\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T01:28:47","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T01:28:47","slug":"northrop-eyes-more-b-21-contracts-air-force-deal-to-speed-production","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/air\/2025\/10\/21\/northrop-eyes-more-b-21-contracts-air-force-deal-to-speed-production\/","title":{"rendered":"Northrop eyes more B-21 contracts, Air Force deal to speed production"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Northrop Grumman expects to receive new U.S. Air Force contracts for its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/air\/2025\/09\/11\/second-b-21-flies-for-first-time-as-air-force-eyes-testing-expansion\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"\" title=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/air\/2025\/09\/11\/second-b-21-flies-for-first-time-as-air-force-eyes-testing-expansion\/\">B-21 Raider stealth bomber program<\/a> by the end of the year, the defense firm\u2019s Chief Executive Officer Kathy Warden said Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And Northrop continues to work with the Air Force on a potential agreement to accelerate production of the B-21, Warden said in an earnings call with investors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The budget reconciliation bill Congress passed in July provides $4.5 billion to speed up production of the B-21. Warden said Northrop remains in active discussion with the Air Force on how to get that done, although the federal government shutdown has slowed those conversations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If such a deal is struck, Warden said, Northrop plans to make more investments to increase its production rate. An acceleration of the B-21 program would mean higher revenue for Northrop in 2026, Warden said, but she declined to predict how much it could raise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe actual production rates, the timing, and ultimately the outcome of those negotiations with the Air Force would define what that financial profile looks like,\u201d Warden said. \u201cIt\u2019s too early for me to speculate on that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Air Force plans to buy at least 100 B-21s to replace its aging and retiring fleets of B-2 Spirit stealth bombers and B-1 Lancers sometime in the 2030s. If the service chose to buy more than 100 B-21s, as it has been considering, Warden said that would be handled in a different negotiation process from the production acceleration discussions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Warden said the program is on track to receive a contract for the third low-rate initial production lot of the B-21 and an advance procurement contract to begin acquiring components and resources to build the fifth lot in the fourth quarter of 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The start of flight tests for the second B-21, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/air\/2025\/09\/11\/second-b-21-flies-for-first-time-as-air-force-eyes-testing-expansion\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"\" title=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/air\/2025\/09\/11\/second-b-21-flies-for-first-time-as-air-force-eyes-testing-expansion\/\">which began in September<\/a>, represents a \u201csignificant milestone\u201d for the program, Warden said. It also marks the beginning of a new phase in B-21 flight testing, beyond general flight performance to integrating its weapons and mission systems, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Multiple other B-21s are now in ground testing in preparation for their first flights, Warden said, which will validate their performance and minimize their risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In April, Northrop announced it had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/air\/2025\/04\/23\/northrop-loses-477m-on-b-21-bomber-as-it-revamps-production-process\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"\" title=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/air\/2025\/04\/23\/northrop-loses-477m-on-b-21-bomber-as-it-revamps-production-process\/\">taken a $477 million loss<\/a> on the B-21 program, which it attributed to a production process change meant to allow the company to build bombers faster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ken Crews, Northrop\u2019s chief financial officer, said on Tuesday that producing the B-21\u2019s engineering and manufacturing development flight test aircraft cost more than expected, which in turn increased Northrop\u2019s anticipated cost of building the low-rate initial production bombers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But a contract restructuring on the B-21 that reduced the company\u2019s expected losses on the remaining low-rate initial production lots all but erased those higher costs, Crews said, and was essentially a wash.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Northrop Grumman expects to receive new U.S. Air Force contracts for its B-21 Raider stealth bomber program by the end of the year, CEO Kathy Warden said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":77008,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":7,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[7,160,12,36],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3412],"class_list":["post-71694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air","category-daily-news-roundup","category-industry","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"NMW6AV4J2FAA7ICMXKPQOSLMQU","arc_canonical_url":"\/air\/2025\/10\/21\/northrop-eyes-more-b-21-contracts-air-force-deal-to-speed-production\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Northrop eyes more B-21 contracts, Air Force deal to speed production - Defense News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Northrop Grumman expects to receive new U.S. Air Force contracts for its B-21 Raider stealth bomber program by the end of the year, CEO Kathy Warden said.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Northrop eyes more B-21 contracts, Air Force deal to speed production\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Northrop Grumman expects to receive new U.S. Air Force contracts for its B-21 Raider stealth bomber program by the end of the year, CEO Kathy 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