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ROY — The estimated price tag for the massive Sentinel nuclear defense system now totals $141.9 billion, an 81% jump from 2020 projections, and U.S. Defense Department officials are hustling to get a handle on costs.
Nonetheless, the project, deemed a critical element of the U.S. defense infrastructure, will continue, U.S. officials say, though its rollout will likely be delayed. Northrop Grumman Corp. is the lead contractor on the program out of a sprawling complex near Hill Air Force Base, the Roy Innovation Center.
"The department has certified the Sentinel program as essential to U.S. national security, reaffirming that a restructured program continues to be the optimal solution for meeting our national security strategy," the U.S. Air Force said in a statement to KSL.com. The Air Force, though, is developing a plan "to restructure the Sentinel program, targeting the root causes of the breach and establishing an appropriate management structure to control costs."
U.S. Rep. Blake Moore, R-Utah, offered emphatic support for Sentinel and said it will move forward. He represents the 1st District, which encompasses Hill Air Force Base, and noted the economic impact to northern Utah of the project, a big job creator.
"There is overwhelming bipartisan support for the Sentinel program. Congress still understands the deterrence measures at stake, especially as we move into an increasingly unstable time frame with our adversaries rapidly modernizing their nuclear forces," Moore said. The ground-based intercontinental ballistic missile system, he said, "is one of those rare assets with no alternative. The underpinning of strategic deterrence is having a credible nuclear force, and ours hasn't been modernized in over 60 years."
What the Sentinel restructuring entails, exactly, remains to be seen, though the Air Force hopes for more details later this year. But William LaPlante, undersecretary of defense for acquisitions and sustainment, told reporters last week that the size and "complexity" of the planned Sentinel launch facility would get closer review.
"This is basically a scaling back of the size and some of the details of the complexity of the launch facility," he said, according to a transcript of his comments. Those changes, he said, would have the ripple effect of reducing the timeline to transition from the Minuteman III ICBM system, which Sentinel will replace, also reducing costs.
Moore noted increases in costs of supplies since the COVID-19 pandemic, supply-chain issues and the grand scope of the project.
"The U.S. government has not conducted this type of project in over 60 years, so some initial projections were inaccurate," he said. "For example, there was a great deal of cable and fiberoptic material that we thought could be reused from Minuteman III, but it cannot. Now they need to dig up and replace a series of cable networks that they didn't expect."
The Sentinel project garnered headlines earlier this year when Bloomberg reported that the price tag totaled some $131.5 billion, a steep jump at the time. That triggered a federal review as required by the federal Nunn-McCurdy Act, now complete, and the public update by defense officials last week, including the new $141.9 billion figure. The increased price tag, $141.9 billion, up from the 2020 estimate of $77 billion to $78 billion, represents future expected costs, not money already spent.
What exactly the "ground-based segment" of Sentinel would entail "was insufficient in hindsight to have a high-quality cost estimate," LaPlante said. He now foresees a "delay of several years" in the Sentinel schedule.
Reps from Northrop Grumman didn't respond to KSL.com queries seeking comment. But in a statement to Breaking Defense, a defense industry publication, the contractor noted the importance U.S. defense officials put on the project in assuring global security and advances in its development.
"We are achieving key milestones to mature the design and reduce risk in preparation for future production and deployment," said the Northrop Grumman statement.
Sentinel will replace the aging Minuteman system — maintained at the Ogden Air Logistic Complex at Hill Air Force Base — and serve as the land-based prong of the nation's "nuclear triad," the system of land-, air- and sea-based nuclear defense systems. Some 400 Minuteman missiles are scattered at 450 silos around FE Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, Malmstrom AFB in Montana and Minot AFB in North Dakota.
