The troubled Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program will hit a key milestone by year’s end, with hopes to deliver the initial ICBM by the early 2030s, Pentagon and Air Force officials announced Tuesday.
In 2024, the Northrop Grumman program to modernize the land-based arm of the nuclear triad went so far over budget that the Pentagon rescinded a 2020 decision to move the program into its engineering and manufacturing development phase. Program officials said in September 2025 that they hoped to re-enter that phase by mid-2027, but now say they plan to hit that milestone this year.
“Leveraging considerable progress over the last 12-18 months, program officials are executing a transformed acquisition strategy paving the way to complete the restructure and achieve a Milestone B decision by the end of 2026, while delivering an initial capability targeted for the early 2030s,” the service said in a Tuesday news release.
Air Force officials said successful ground tests, solid rocket motor qualifications, and critical design reviews are examples of much-needed progress since the program triggered a Nunn-McCurdy Act review in 2024. Additionally, service officials highlighted the new direct reporting portfolio manager role for critical major weapon systems—which includes F-47, B-21, and Sentinel—as crucial to accelerating the program. Gen. Dale White was confirmed for that position in December.
“The DRPM has the direct authority to make decisions, informed by integrated inputs across the enterprise and in alignment with the mission priorities set by the Secretary of War and the Secretary for the Air Force,” White said in the news release. “That construct allows us to resolve tradeoffs quickly and move with the speed required to deliver credible deterrence—while preserving the discipline this mission demands.”
White’s position, and the creation of his new direct reporting portfolio manager role that reports directly to Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg, appeared to be at odds with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s acquisitions reforms—including changes to expand decision-making authority at lower levels.
The new role “signifies a major lack of confidence in the Air Force to pull off its main acquisition programs” and allows White and the Pentagon to call the shots on Sentinel, said Todd Harrison, a defense budget expert at the American Enterprise Institute.
“I think it also signifies that there are certain programs that are too big or too important to fail,” he said. “A lot of these processes it doesn’t seem like are going to apply to these too-big-to-fail programs. Sentinel is definitely one of those, because we don’t have an alternative. We don’t have a fallback.”
Other Sentinel program developments:
- Construction has already started on the first of three new command and control centers at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, and on test facilities at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
- Teams plan to break ground on a prototype launch silo at Northrop Grumman’s Promontory, Utah, site, this month, which “will allow engineers to test and refine modern construction techniques, validating the new silo design before work begins in the missile fields,” the news release said.
- Prototyping activities this summer at F.E. Warren will validate construction methods being used for utility corridors.
Officials are planning for the first missile pad launch for Sentinel in 2027, the news release said.
“The deliberate progress being made on Sentinel ensures that for decades to come, there will be no doubt in the minds of our adversaries about the credibility and readiness of our nation’s nuclear deterrent,” Navy Adm. Richard Correll, head of U.S. Strategic Command, said in the news release. “That is the ultimate deliverable.”
