(JustPatriots.com)- Last week, South Dakota Senator Mike Rounds visited Northrop Grumman’s B-21 Raider production facility in Palmdale, California where he announced that the project is on budget and the bomber’s reveal ceremony would take place later this year.
The B-21 Raider stealth bomber will be a penetrating strike bomber capable of delivering both nuclear and conventional weapons.
According to the US Air Force, the B-21 Raider will be the latest of a larger family of manned and unmanned aerial systems specializing in conventional Long Range Strike like Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, electronic attack, and communication.
Its open systems architecture reduces “integration risk” and enables “competition for future modernization efforts” which allows the B-21 Raider to evolve with changing threats, the Air Force said.
While only a rendering of the B-21 Raider is available, the aircraft is supposedly similar to the B-2 Spirit currently in service.
The Air Force expects the B-21 Raider to be operational by 2025. It is estimated that each stealth bomber will cost around $600 million.
The Pentagon plans to purchase at least one hundred B-21 Raiders as part of its effort to update its bomber fleet. In addition to the B-21 Raider, the Air Force’s future bomber fleet will also include the B-52 Stratofortress.
The B-1 Lancer and B-2 Spirit currently in use will be retired.
You can see a rendering of the Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider stealth bomber at 19FortyFive.com.
