Observations all along the line - Kimball & the Southern Panhandle First
Observations all along the line - Kimball & the Southern Panhandle First
But Officials Say Money Will Be Found To Make Sentinel Happen
Discussions continue in Washington, D.C., on the modernization of weapon systems for the United States.
The Air Force Sentinel project is destined for F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne and bases in North Dakota and Montana. The Sentinel is the ICBM replacement package for the current outdated Minuteman III missiles, and the program is often discussed by Air Force officials and think tanks in Washington, D.C.
The Sentinel is the land-based leg of the United States nuclear triad on air, land and sea.
Recently, when the Sentinel project came in at 37% over budget, automatically the Nunn-McCurdy Act went into effect. It requires the Department of Defense to report this budget overrun to Congress. The Nunn-McCurdy Act is enacted when a Major Defense Acquisition program has costs overrun that are beyond certain thresholds. The Sentinel project budget overrun created a Nunn-McCurdy breach.
The result is that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is required to certify the project to prevent it from being canceled.
Undersecretary of the Air Force, Honorable Kristyn Jones, said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Wednesday, Jan. 24, “As part of the challenges with the Nunn-McCurdy process, it is looking at how are you going to address those costs and schedule impacts?”
Jones also said, “My hope is that throughout the end of this process, we’ll be able to fine-tune the program and reduce risk moving forward. But there won’t be a decision made that we can live without it.”
A transcript of the discussion, titled “Air Force Priorities in an Era of Strategic Competition,” is posted on the center’s website.
Lt. Gen. Richard G. Moore Jr., deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, weighed in on the discussion, “So we have predicted that the nuclear bow wave for theAir Force would peak in 2027. We now see that it is slipping to the right. Probably 2028, maybe even 2029. But at its peak the nuclear modernization effort is about a third of the investment portfolio of the Air Force.”
Moore continued, “And we will have to find the money. Sentinel is going to be funded.”
In June, the U.S. Government Accountability Office explained the maturity and design stability of the Sentinel Program. The GAO said, “Of Sentinel’s 18 critical technologies, three are mature, 14 are approaching maturity, and one is immature. The program plans to mature all technologies before production starts, currently planned for 2026. However, our prior work found that starting development before technologies are mature can increase the risk of cost and schedule growth later in the program.”
Moore was adamant that the Minuteman III lifetime cannot be extended. Designed as a 10-year weapons program, it has been in use since the 1970s.
No doubt the Sentinel program will continue to be in the news as program officials look to have the program certified and then build the Sentinel missiles and infrastructure. This total replacement system is planned to include 400 missiles, 450 silos, and more than 600 facilities over a 31,900 square-mile landmass. Sentinel is a top priority of the Department of Defense.