Northrop Grumman continues to deliver strong test and production performance on the B-21 Raider, with an LRIP Lot 2 award late last year signaling further confidence in the program’s technical performance and progress. In partnership with the U.S. Air Force, Northrop Grumman has prioritized adaptability, affordability and productivity since the program’s inception, focusing on successful long-term outcomes and delivering the U.S. Air Force a strategic deterrent to project peace through force.
“Northrop Grumman’s decision to build the test jets on the actual production line is an example of the program strategy paying dividends. We will enter Production Lot 2 in the fourth quarter of 2024 with a B-21 workforce that has moved down the learning curve earlier in production. Not only have we learned how to build the B-21, but we are learning how to build the B-21 better and at scale – optimizing multiple areas of the build for long-term efficiency and affordability,” said Tom Jones, corporate vice president and president, Northrop Grumman Aeronautics Systems.
Digital ecosystem reduces risks and increases efficiency
Early in the design phase, the B-21’s digital ecosystem enabled engineers to conduct agile testing on production hardware and software, first in integration labs and then on a flight test stand. Before the B-21 even took off, the flight test stand had completed more than 200 test missions totaling more than 1.000 flight hours, testing production hardware, software and sensors in a dynamic environment and enabling teams to approach discovery well in advance.
Through the digital ecosystem, the Northrop Grumman team has seen a 50 percent reduction in time to certify software in the lab. Similarly, flight test teams are validating aircraft performance in real time, rather than days of post-mission processing and analysis. This speed and efficiency fuels a robust flight test cadence.
“As a result of Northrop Grumman’s innovative technologies and diligent execution, we only had to make one software change during the first year of flight testing – a testament to the early risk reduction work our teams did across the labs and flight testbed,” said Jones. “Now, by combining our mature digital ecosystem with proven accuracy, Northrop Grumman and the U.S. Air Force can achieve efficiency and speed in a way that has never been done before in a major acquisition program. Bigger than the B-21, Northrop Grumman is defining the future of DevOps with experience-informed innovation.”
Factory of the Future, Flight Line of the Future
Northrop Grumman’s investment – more than $2 billion in infrastructure and development effort – in its digital ecosystem provides the entire B-21 team with enterprise-wide access and integration to a single source of truth across the design and construction processes. Where the digital environment meets the factory floor, this digital technology streamlines configuration management, facilitating communication between technicians and engineers during construction, in some areas already reducing manufacturing hours by nearly a third.
In addition to the benefits of the digital ecosystem in manufacturing, Northrop Grumman’s expanded implementation of augmented reality, advanced robotics and artificial intelligence technologies are further enabling technicians on the aircraft to drive efficiency and quality throughout the build. Northrop Grumman has leveraged commercially available technologies in a secure environment to form the highly sophisticated manufacturing facilities being expanded for B-21 production.
The tools deployed in B-21 manufacturing today are paving the way for operational sustainment. The B-21 was designed from the ground up to be a daily flyer, with minimal maintenance required between missions. Decades of experience operating stealth aircraft systems, combined with the Highly Immersive Virtual Environment – or HIVE, which allows engineers to visualize how sustainment tasks will be performed by future maintainers – have all informed the B-21’s design to drive affordability and operational needs. The Combined Test Force (CTF) has already demonstrated the ability to conduct multiple test flights in a week, an early positive indicator for the B-21 as a daily flyer.
Sustainable Success
“The more we test and analyze performance, the greater our confidence that there is no single system better positioned to deliver peace through force for the American warfighter than the B-21,” Jones said.
Innovative digital technologies and advanced manufacturing processes have resulted in the B-21 meeting government affordability targets while successfully scaling into production and meeting technical and performance requirements. More than a bomber, the B-21 is adaptable for the future threat, capable of executing its mission independently or as a force multiplier operating within a family of systems that benefit sensors and offboard platforms.
With the balance between production and test still on the horizon, Northrop Grumman is seeing fewer discoveries and risk realization that have historically driven cost due to change, providing confidence that the B-21 Raider will continue to deliver strong cost and technical performance. The combination of innovative technology and effective program management keeps the B-21 on a path to sustainable success.
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