The troubled ICBM program was supposed to fly for the first time in 2026, but now the Air Force says that the date is unknown.
Despite the program’s woes, officials have emphasized fielding the new missile is imperative to maintain America’s strategic deterrence…
Lucky thing major (non-nuclear) threat Iran’s missiles can barely reach the Mediterranean.
Feeling better about war with Iran, China and Russia while stuck in quagmires against such formidable adversaries as Iraq and Somalia “terror groups”?
https://breakingdefense.com/2025/06/sentinel-icbm-first-flight-date-now-in-flux-service-says/
WASHINGTON — An ongoing restructuring of the beleaguered Sentinel ICBM program has left its flight testing schedule up in the air, and a new date for the missile’s first flight is now unknown, an Air Force official tells Breaking Defense.
Officials previously planned to fly the missile for the first time in 2026, itself a delay of over two years. But as part of the program’s overhaul, mandated after an 81 percent cost spike last year, “the team is actively assessing the overall schedule, including potential impacts on the timeline for the first full-system flight,” the Air Force official said today.
The revelation of the shifting flight test plan came in response to Breaking Defense’s query about a Government Accountability Office report published Wednesday [PDF], which stated that the Sentinel’s first flight is now set for March 2028, a total delay of over four years. The Air Force official did not comment directly on the GAO timeline, saying only, “Updated schedule details, including key milestone dates, will be available once” officials complete the program’s restructuring — a statement that does not deny 2028 as a possible date, but leaves open options for it to be both sooner and later.
Since the cost increase caused what’s known as a Nunn-McCurdy breach last year, officials have been rethinking several aspects of the over-budget plan to modernize the land leg of America’s nuclear triad, such as whether they can reuse existing Minuteman III silos. The Sentinel program has apparently also decided to make changes to the flight testing campaign itself, which the Air Force official said now involves “a more deliberate, phased” approach.
“Rather than waiting until the end of development for a single, comprehensive test, the new strategy introduces an incremental ‘crawl, walk, run’ method that allows for earlier flight testing of key components. This approach is designed to reduce risk, validate technologies earlier, and ensure a more reliable path to full system integration,” the official said. As the overall restructuring continues, the official pointed to continued progress for the missile, such as a full-scale, static fire qualification test of the missile’s first stage solid rocket motor held in March.
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